Looking, Seeing and Communicating

The work presented on this website represents a collaboration between the Department of Language and Cognition, University College London, and the Department of Neurodisability, Great Ormond Street Hospital. Our central concern is how best to describe and support 'looking for communication' in children with complex physical disabilities, who have little or no functional speech.

Click below to download the
Eye-pointing Classification Scale

Click below to download the
Eye-pointing Classification Scale App

The Eye-Pointing Classification Scale is also available to download in the following languages:

See also:

Clarke, M. T., Sargent, J., Cooper, R., Aberbach, G., McLaughlin, L., Panesar, G., Woghiren, A., Griffiths, T., Price, K., Rose, C. & Swettenham, J. (2020). Development and testing of the eye-pointing classification scale for children with cerebral palsy. Disability and Rehabilitation, 1-6.

Sargent, J., Clarke, M., Price, K., Griffiths, T., & Swettenham, J. (2013). Use of eye‐pointing by children with cerebral palsy: what are we looking at? International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 48(5), 477-485.

Below are a set of short videos in which Humphrey the puppet demonstrates looking behaviours represented in the Eye-Pointing Classification Scale.

V - Other looking behaviours

MediaCentral Widget Placeholderhttp://mediacentral.ucl.ac.uk/Player/10146

IV - Fixes gaze

MediaCentral Widget Placeholderhttp://mediacentral.ucl.ac.uk/Player/10255

III - Fixes, disengages and transfers gaze

MediaCentral Widget Placeholderhttp://mediacentral.ucl.ac.uk/Player/10281

III - Fixes, disengages and transfers gaze

MediaCentral Widget Placeholderhttp://mediacentral.ucl.ac.uk/Player/10432

II - Shifts gaze to face

MediaCentral Widget Placeholderhttp://mediacentral.ucl.ac.uk/Player/10433

I - Eye-points

MediaCentral Widget Placeholderhttps://mediacentral.ucl.ac.uk/Play/10434

The development of the Eye-pointing Classification Scale was funded by the charities Action Medical Research and Great Ormond Street Hospital. A video describing this work is available at Action Medical Research. To find out more about the charities and their work, please visit their websites: