The sidelong look.
This is sometimes to be seen in S.L.D. children. The sideways deviation
of the eyes from the mid-position is quite extreme. How might we
explain this rather odd behaviour? One possibility is to say something
like "It's because he or she is 'autistic'". This silly non-explanation is
in fact often used by care staff working with s.l.d. children, but is
of no value whatsoever.
How else might we approach this question?
We might ask these questions:-
1.What could such a position of eyes and head possibly achieve?
2.Under what precise circumstances does the behaviour occur?
Observation and discussion
Case C. W. often showed this behaviour. On some of those occasions she
appeared to be listening to something, possibly the sound source being
outside the room. We might theorise that in this position the line of
the ears points to the sound, and so the difference in the nature of
the acoustic stimulus in the two ears is maximised. It would seem that
the child's ability to localise sounds is impaired and that this
behaviour is an attempt to overcome the problem.
This expression can look rather suspicious, shifty and 'creepy'.
Why?
Because the person adopting it is looking at something
in a manner which might disguise the fact that he is
looking at that thing
If this was the basis for Caroline's behaviour
a. why should she wish to disguise the fact she had seen something?
b. would she have possessed the intelligence to know that by looking
in this way another person might not know she had seen something,
requiring that she had seen other people do this, and remember that
she had not been certain they had seen something and copy such
behaviour? The answer is a definite "No!"