A very odd thing I read earlier about Aspies...

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Perhaps we do not go out so much into the sun and get UV damaged like NT's, and instead spend time doing our special intrests and hang on WP so much, which makes us stay inside...

don't people tend to find attractive those that seem familiar to them in some way? maybe Hans Asperger had Asperger's.

I have noticed the big head thing....but I dont know about the attractive deal. I thing that a lot of people with Autism look younger because of the fact that our facial expressions tend to be more flat than animated.
I used to work with people who had Alzheimers and they looked younger after they started developing symptoms than before because of this very same reason. Also we had a few who could only remember their childhood and believed that they were still children....they appeared even younger with wide eyed innocence. So maybe that is another reason why we appear younger, we can still relate to being children and still retain some of the emotions and feelings.

I don't think that looks have any baring as to whether a person has an ASD or not. I only know (sort-of) four other people who (I suspect) are on the autism spectrum. Two are female & two are male. One female is fairly attractive, but one of the males & the other female were below average, & the other male was well below average. So, although a lot of people with ASD's may seem to be attractive, I don't think they're any more or less attractive than anyone else on Earth.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Some people with ASD's can be good looking and some can't. Physical appearance has nothing to do with ASD's. Behaviour is the dead giveaway.

All mother's think their kids are gorgeous. I've been told that by my own, although I don't think I'm that good looking. Average maybe. Far too square headed and broad shouldered to be an attractive female.
I don't agree with this bias mothers have about their own children. I suppose I'm that way about my cats.

I have heard of mothers talk about their ASD children as beautiful, but a more internal, wholesome beauty.

It could also mean youthful appearance.

And weren't Asperger's subjects from wealthy homes? So I'd agree with in good health.

Also, Hugh Dancy (Adam) is a fox but he doesn't actually have an ASD. I've been watching him in films for years because he's so handsome. Oh and such a good actor too.

It's just another myth amoung the many others about people on the autism spectrum.
Parents, whether their kids are autistic or not, will try to find the positive in any situation concerning their kids. I think the parents who are saying that their kids are exceptionally good looking are just clutching at anything to make themselves feel better. Just like the parents who brag about their kids intelligence or 'outstanding' creativity and/or compassion.
Those things may be true but for the people who have the need to broadcast it, it's probably been exaggerated.

Whether or not Hans Asperger documented this or not is irrelevant anyway. Good looks are subjective.

Yes, I very much agree... it seems like a brag fest more than anything.

I told them that my son, to me, IS a beautiful little boy... but because he looks for the good in people regardless of what they may have done to him most of the time. He is accepting of everyone, etc. But by society's standards of typical beauty, he wouldn't be winning any awards.

Daughter however... everyone comments on how gorgeous she is... how adorable she is... "oh I just love those dimples"... but, even as her mom, I cannot say that I find her to be absolutely gorgeous. She is just intentionally too mean to people a lot of the time for me to see that. It's like, "sure, she's cute... but keep an eye on her because she can get real ugly, real fast".

People are always biased to some degree when it comes to their own children, of course. I brought that up too.... nobody has responded still, with anything but more pics and "my kids been asked to do modelling", lol.

i do not think there is any correlation between autism and attractiveness.
i do not know who is attractive or not because i can not see physical beauty well (i can sometimes see someone who is pleasant to look at, but it is mainly due to to the fact that they are not pulling faces).

i think that if a person does not stretch their face in expressions for most of their life, they will have less wrinkles, so they may look younger.

also, the facial muscles that attach to the bony structure of the skull do not exert much influence in the shape of the skull's formal development if they do not pull on the anchor points on the skull often.

people who are wildly insane often have deformed heads, and i think it is because the shape of the skull is influenced by the strong pull that their facial muscles exert on it.
so, if someone is grimacing from a tortuous experience, those muscles slowly pull the skull out of shape as the bone cells in the skull die and are replaced by new ones that are rather plastic and malleable at first.

all cells in the body are replaced by replicas when they die, and those replica's are softer and more pliable until they set, so over time, the skull can be deformed by the pull of facial muscles that are anchored upon various points on it.

i think that if a person rarely has any expression on their face, then their skull shape will not be mutated with time by attitude, and it will remain much like it was as a child.
average people seem to have a sense of self image, and they pull expressions that augment that image, so , depending on what image they have of themselves, so their facial form will eventually follow after some time.
angry people look angry even when they are not.
happy people have happy looking faces even when they are not pulling any expression.

conceited people who think they are cute usually have pouted lips and wrinkles in the corners of their mouths that are the result of years of pouting (like dogs bottom mouths are created by smoking cigarettes etc).

but i may be wrong. i am hopeless at ascertaining things like this.

My, my, what an awful lot of speculation based on almost no evidence! There are several obstacles here:

1. Nobody has much economic incentive to collect and analyze a large amount of data

2. Any data that is collected is likely to be heavily biased.

3. It is somewhat difficult to determine populations (are we talking everyone in the world vs. people with Aspergers, citizens of third-world countries without any psychiatric or abnormal health condition versus people with any form of Autism, ... )

4. A large amount of data will be necessary, as living things tend to be quite varied.

5. Depending on #3, data collection may need to occur in multiple countries in order to accurately represent the populations.

6. Depending on #3, it will probably be difficult to obtain a truly representative populations of people with and without AS, as not all cases have been diagnosed, it is difficult to perform the diagnosis, there is usually a large discrepancy between the number of aspies and NT's in a given region, the populations of diagnosed and undiagnosed aspies may differ in their appearance, and in order to obtain a sample of NT's, they all must be tested for AS.

Sorry. I thought you were criticizing people for their speculations on why some people may think their AS kids are attractive. I must have misread your reply.

I don't know how founded in science this is... I've known both attractive and unattractive aspergians...
I think that if all of Hans Asperger's patients were good looking then it was purely coincidental. I've known enough unattractive and average aspies to think it has nothing to do with physical appearance.

On the note of appearance, what always annoys me is that NTs seem to think that autism is some how linked to being hideously ugly...
I think it's because the only autistic people most NTs encounter (and know they are autistic without having to be told) are extremely low functioning, and LFAs tend to be less able to take care of themselves, ie: never brushing their teeth, never bathing or washing their faces, never brushing their hair, etc. Even a beautiful person can appear ugly if they allow themselves to fall into disrepair, so to speak.

Because of this, no one will believe that I have anything "wrong with me." Let alone AS, no one will believe that I'm anything but perfectly normal simply because I'm attractive. My ex boyfriend (very NT) goes on and on about how I can't be aspergian because I'm "too good of a person." What the heck does that mean? Are people with Asperger's evil? Despite my obvious difficulties in almost every aspect of socialization and relationships (we dated for over a year! he knows better than anyone how dysfunctional I am!) he refuses to believe that I have AS simply because I "don't look ret*d"... Man, how insulting to the autistic community! I told him off for saying that for quite a while...

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