Social referencing

My son and his younger, typically developing sibling were in a semi-private swimming class together recently. Every day they eagerly looked forward to the lesson. After every lesson they get rousing hi-fives from both their coach and I. They are both eager to discuss what they did really well in their class that day and what they need to do better. But during every lesson I would notice my youngest looking over at me looking for signs on my expression to indicate to her whether I'd seen her swim backwards or forwards or treading water or her strokes etc. Every time I'd give her a thumbs up or clap silently or give her animated smiles. She loved those silent interactions with me from across the pool and sometimes even in the middle of her treading water with her little face struggling to stay above the water. It's as if by locking eyes with me she'd keep herself afloat and keep treading. The silent interaction between my daughter and I is what is called social referencing. This never happens with my son who is mildly autistic. He loves to go under water and would follow the coach's instructions to a T but would never look around to see if I am looking at him or whether I'd seen a particular skill he was practicing. Nope, none of that. If I hi-five him at the end of the lesson, he's okay with that. If I praise his efforts verbally when he's out of the water, he smiles up at me. But he would not look to draw attention to his efforts. He does what he has to just because he enjoys it. His pleasure does not increase or decrease because I was watching and smiling at him from across the pool. Joint attention was something we struggled with him from when he was toddler. He'd never follow with his eyes where we were pointing and he'd never ask us to go look at something with him. Same thing with social referencing. In typical children, social referencing behaviour begins to emerge toward the end of the first year of life. But in individuals with autism, this behavior, along with several other aspects of social cognition, is mostly impaired. This is something we can continue working on by constantly engaging in social referencing behaviour with other people so that he'll be exposed to that behaviour often and learn that it's an acceptable behaviour. It is important to continue to improve on that aspect of his social development because it will allow him to connect more with others on an emotional level as well as improve his ability to read emotional expressions on other people's faces and reciprocate appropriately.