Can you recognize an Aspie as you see him/her?

Post Reply New Topic

I wonder how recognizable we are. Can you understand one has AS unless you are told, by seeing him/her just for a short time? And do you think you are recognizable by non-informed people?

Yes, I've been right several times about strangers being Aspies. I've had people notice it in me as well. It's weird how some of us can do that.

I don't get recognized but then nobody know AS in my area so I don't really count .

Based on myself, and a few I have met, I would have to say NO! But some define AS as being SO debilitating that they would be astounded that another couldn't detect it. You might as well ask if they could tell a HIDOP by sight.

Then again, when I went into europe, people said they can tell an American by sight. They CAN'T! They FAILED to notice me. A french boy, in a real hurry, ran up and asked me a question in French! My danish uncle told me not to speak danish because the officer would then never believe I was American! My uncle has lived in Denmark for DECADES, is married to a danish worker for the government, and speaks fluent Danish.

BTW there IS no thing I know of called a HIDOP. I simply meant that if the meaning of what is looked for is not known/agreed upon, the question asked is meaningless.

I've recognised people on the spectrum a few times. I don't know, they kinda draw my attention somehow.

They're alone with their head down. Possibly twitching or drooling.

No, but then I'm a scientist so I wouldn't believe such an impulsive conclusion without more in-depth data. I've got to know a couple of people quite well and I'm pretty sure they've got enough Aspie traits to be diagnosed, but one of them doesn't believe it, and both of them seem to be doing OK without the need for the label. Part of my problem with recognising Aspies is that I'm getting more and more evidence that I've somehow flitered NTs out of my life, so practically everybody I've ever been interested in has been unusual.......so I have very poor control data. Also I tend to stick to people closer to my own age, so the youngest suspect Aspie I know is already in her late 30s, and maturity is said to cloud the diagnosis with coping strategies.

Even with my own family, the jury's out, apart from for Dad - I'd stake my reputation on him being AS. My sister has some kind of social strangeness, but I'm miles away from knowing if she's got AS or not.

I think for me there's 2 ways - a "proper" DX, which still won't really be a definitive answer, and the "no label" approach where I just note the traits I see and leave it at that. Viewing people as AS-or-not-AS is useful to me in the same way as viewing them as Scorpio-or-not-Scorpio.......whether the concepts of AS and Scorpio represent anything real or not, they give you a way of exploring people's personalities, which is handy if you don't know where to start. Though the "AS-or-not-AS" way may lead you to a point where you might be able to understand their behaviour without asking, and even guess the remaining and unseen aspects of their personality, if AS is real - and the results should be the very stuff of good friendship, as long as you don't get cocky and think they've got the whole shebang when they haven't. Equally, if Scorpio is real, you could use that, but my money's on AS for reality.....isn't there some statistical analysis that can demonstrate the reality of a psychological concept?

I can't say that I can detect all autistic people (since I have no way of knowing how many people I've failed to detect, obviously). But I can say that I've correctly identified a lot of autistic people in settings where I would not expect to meet autistic people. They have ended up telling me things like "I used to be autistic" (for those who were deemed cured once they started talking, ugh), or that they have a current dx of autism/AS/etc.

I would love to say that I have great radar on this, but really, Asperger's is fairly rare... Most people I see that I might guess are Aspergian are more likely just shy, or introverted, or nerdy... and quite NT. In order for me to feel secure in making an armchair diagnosis, I would have to know the perosn pretty damned well. So far, my reacord is zero out of zero attempts.

i don't leave my house enough to aspie-hunt.

Third option: Sometimes!

I don't have an aspie-dar. I have a gay-dar but not an aspie-dar. Some people are so obvious to me that I have to wonder if they are on the Spectrum somewhere... My husband's ex-wife, the night shift pharmacist, the eccentric Englishman at the library in Germany, my ex-boyfriend... BUT my own son, who I had said many times acted just like me, completely slipped any detection on my part that he may also have Aspergers Syndrome until the school psychologist acted like he had been wearing a big ol' I'M AN ASPIE sign and we started the evaluation for his pretty quick diagnosis. So, I don't have the confidence to say anything one way or the other.

I have only met two people that were aspies for sure, I suspect a couple of people I've known in the past, but I have no way of knowing for sure. The two aspies I have met are quite different from each other. The first one I met has the classic impairments associated with AS and it's obvious. The second one I couldn't tell until I was told.

I can't tell unless it is really obvious.

I work with a lot of scientists and engineers. They are really different from most NTs. Most of them have a lot of Aspie traits. I think that a third or more of the people that I know are possible Aspies. I doubt if that many of them actually are Aspies. Even among them, I stand out as having poor social skills. I have to admit, that I have a half-dozen strong candidates.

I don't think that I am obviously Aspie. I think that I appear to be an extreme introvert, with a few quirky mannerisms.

I think there might actually be some kind of 'radar'

I used to babysit a boy with full-out autism, and though he had other people come sometimes, his mom said that he would specifically request me to take him to movies/CiCi's pizza, etc. He got into this habit of suddenly stopping what he was doing, mustering up the focus to look me in the eye, and just saying 'Nicole' (my real name). Maybe there's something there, or maybe he just liked that I didn't talk to him like he was 5 (which a lot of people did).

Another peculiar incident: At church one day, I had been sitting in front of another full-out autistic guy (he appeared to be an older teenager). As I left, he literally put on a smile and started coming toward me with his arms extended. His parents looked soooo embarrassed

No I cannot. I go by what they say about themselves. Then I can wonder. I even wonder if my nutritionist had it but I would never guess it if she didn't say she had social problems or mention she says things that offends people or don't even get her jokes or doesn't like change.

I can recognize it if its obvious but for the really mild cases, I can only suspect here and there, but most of my suspicions are wrong or inconclusive. Right now theres only 1 guy in my school who I highly suspect is aspie, hes more obvious.