How Eye-Tracking Revealed Hidden Social Skills in Severely Disabled Youth

We all crave connection, but for some, the path to relationship is obscured by silence. It can feel isolating when the words we have to give just won't come out. This is often the experience for individuals with multiple disabilities, a condition that combines severe intellectual and motor impairments. They are frequently considered 'untestable' because they cannot speak or gesture easily. Yet, a recent study from the University of Geneva suggests that their inner lives are far more active than we assume.

The researchers, working alongside the University of Lille, turned to eye-tracking to bridge this gap. This technique records and analyzes eye movements, but for these young people, it is a way to look at them, not just look for them. In 2022, a UNIGE team demonstrated that individuals with these conditions can exhibit visual preferences. This finding paved the way for a new approach. Thalia Cavadini, a doctoral research assistant at the UNIGE Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, explains that the team provided preliminary evidence that certain socio-emotional skills can be strengthened with customised training. She notes that this suggests these young people possess previously unsuspected learning abilities.

The intervention was creative, using eye-controlled video games developed with three specific software programs. There was Gazeplay, an open-source platform with many games. Then there was Attention Eye, created by UNIGE students to train skills like social orientation and emotion recognition. They even used a game called Climb the hill, designed by an independent creator to train social and moral skills. The results were promising. The study involved nine children and adolescents aged between seven and eighteen. Over the course of one year, they underwent 40 to 100 individual sessions. At the end of the study, all participants showed improvement in their visual exploration. Furthermore, they made progress in at least one of six socio-emotional skills tested, such as preferential attention to biological movement and joint attention.