Can you spot an Aspie based on writing style?

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I don't think my writing style itself gives anything away. Stuff I write about does I'm sure (like when I'm writing about being autistic).

There are a couple of aspies I know of that only mention having aspergers on the sidelines, but I might have guessed based on their fixed routine fixed interest type of posting pattern. But that would be a really educated guess on my part having been around so many kids on the spectrum in school .

And have been told many times from others they would have no idea I'm as autistic as I am from the way I talk online. What seems to stand out is I'm smart mature and frank (their words....i think i sound like a doofus a lot of the time).

Yes, but not because you're overly formal/articulate, but more how someone described on the first page that you tend to write about things from all possible angles as you consider them in your arguments.

I've been trying to do that less.

Why???! !! That's a good thing to do in your writing.

Because it's not concise & indicates indecisiveness. It's better to be short and direct to your point w/ supporting statements vs. a wall of text contemplating all possible angles as you're thinking out loud.

It's a bad thing to do in your writing if you want (NT) people to read it and take it seriously - especially in business communications.

It can be a good thing here on WP in conversational threads as it can show you've thoroughly thought something through.. but otherwise I'd say it's a bit of a bad habit.

My dyslexia was really shown up to me by my aspie ex (I have AS too) as he finds writing and spelling so intuitive, when he writes posts or emails, it just flows out of him, so effortless and good, he writes such clear understandable things, he can also write in a chatty style and how language is said, he writes such good stuff so quickly.

I on the other hand write very slowly, re reading what Ive written constantly, I have to keep making corrections and I find it really hard to get my meaning across and make sense, and I cant write how people talk but write much more formally, especially with emails. In real life Im quite verbose where as my ex is more hesitant, but in writing were the opposite.

What do you see here?

WHAT DO YOU SEE!?

You see nothing. That's right. NOTHING!

It isn't so much writing style, but it's moreso what someone talks about or how they address their problems.

My creative writer teacher often gave me praise for having both impressive description and dialogue. I didn't quite expect that last one. I don't really write how 'real' people speak, though. I write how I wish people spoke.

The scientifically inclined part of my brain admits agrudgingly... "only when it's obvious" .
The artistically inclined heart of me, the politically inspired visionary teaching part of me?
YES - YES - YES

i think it is all, necessarily even, about style
i think it is allways also necessarily about language, and thus it has to always be about writing...

as autism is all-pervading it affects everything, it informs every thing we are, and everyway we present each our own diversely unique personality, it simply has to

the question is only, what, in autism (where exceptionality is rule), can possibly be "obvious" - the more we learn about autism (especially at the higher functioning asperger's level), the more we have to recognize autism keeps presenting us with yet another surprise

but no - written documentation only will, also necessarily, never be sufficient evidence for positive diagnosis.
(For an aside, my second opinion states one very interesting general rule in dealing with autism, where it observes that BECAUSE an ASD has been confirmed, NO standard psychotherapy can be deemed reliable.)(Which confirms my observation that, indeed, language itself is a central issue in autism, whyever that may be.)

I think it was Hans Asperger himself already linking "it" with talent, and I would guess autism, for whatever medical-biological causes, will always lead to an UNEVEN distribution of talents - there will always be weak points and strong points, and more extremely so than in NT 'normality' (which is a far wider spectrum than autism, for that matter - hehe ;]] )

All talents have to do with sensorial control, if i can put it like that - a weaker sense has less control (and will respond accordingly - I would say this becomes visible in autistic tantrums, panic attacks, (increased) stimming... - and I am convinced that auti-obsessions and in the other extreme auti-talkativeness can also be interpreted as stimming;
but that then also brings us to the stronger sense, and more sensorial control...

Style is the way, the manner, the ART by which any personality can be said... to express itself
(i don't like "express" here as it implies an impulse to express) can be said... to present itself
(don't like that either, it implies an external being seen, presented-to) can be said... to be...

I believe strongly that autism has found its way of expressing itself - even involuntarily - in all arts since the beginning of humanity, if not before...
We will never be able to positively conclude from any sample of creative production, however large, be it a painting or a poem, a building or any picture however moving, any piece of music, or even some delicious menu, a wine or some perfume is the work made by an autist,

but i am sure there is ample usage for the word "autistic". I am sure there is something that could be considered an autistic style, and ever since I self-discovered and indeed also self-diagnosed before confirmation, I have found myself wondering, wow... why did, does, for instance the dutch writer Simon Vestdijk "speak to me" as he always did - hm, like over 60 novels but take that aspect of Executive Dysfunction away, consider some other weird details, hm... or what about Multatuli, with his FRAGMENTED way of writing...
Those might be examples, with obviously great linguistic talent, so great that it allowed them to escape coming across as the more typical rigid-type aspie.
But language is everywhere. How many aspies are going undiagnosed but writing one inconsiderate act of law after another, unawares they are facilitating and legalizing financial gain... Autism bring new meaning to Lady Justice going blindfolded, priding itself on it's lack of empathy or Theory of Mind...

My guess? I would bet many literary-minded aspies would at least recognize so much in old mystical poets. Not saying the mystics are aspies, but i am sure there will be a higher percentage among them...
Rainman aspie? But much rather think higher functioning - Peter Sellers in Being There, even better The Party? Jacques Tati? Those are sort of the easy ones, but how about Blackadder for the extreme opposite of Mr. Bean

And at the lower end of linguistic control, well...
yes, once you know someone has severe autism, and is simply glad the net has lead him or her here, and forgets s/he ought to be glad to have found a way to communicate-in-writing-at-all -
it becomes so visible, and it can move me to tears to understand a struggle that I will never fully appreciate - and I have to remember that a post here where the grammatical subject "I" is only conspicuous in its absence, that that might also be caused by the laziness that texting has brought us... grrrrrrr

This has become too long, by far, i know ;]]

I have yet one more point to address, although I shall try not to elaborate. The link between language and the senses. I have let's call it circumstantial evidence (including some circumstanzial evidancing) for reasoning that LANGUAGE, in and of itself is A SENSE, and in terms of linking with normal usage of english, I might suggest a "real" sixth sense (this will require much elaboration, but I think of it as the 7th sense.

I said "in and of" itself to stress it's separate individual being, but maybe just "in itself" is more precise. Language is the other-senses-emcompassing "meta-sense" that allows us simultaneously to MAKE=alsoCREATE sense of what we perceive.
Medically, neurologically, I see this metasensing involved in the supermirror-neurons' communicating their processing of the separate-6-channeled sensorial input - that is where input is given word, labeled, that is how knowledge if formed, and is self-enhancing...
More meta-mirrorneurons, richer experience... This is where the autistic brain falters, and also how the linguistic sense might go places other minds don't...

I bet my life that James Joyce was an aspie, and I present Finnegan's Wake for proof

I am, aspiciously