Precocious/delayed development?

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I've noticed that a lot of people on the autism spectrum either experience precocious development in some things, or delayed development. I was wondering what people here have experienced, and whether you consider it to be precocious, delayed or neither?

Personally, I learned to walk & talk around 11 months or so & learned to read at about 4. I also wrote & drew somewhat legibly around the same time (mostly labelling things & writing my name & drawing people). However, it took me a while longer than other children to learn how to tie my shoelaces, so I was around 7 or 8 when I finally got the hang of it. It also apparently took a while for my teeth to come in & (TMI moment approaching) for me to be potty trained! For both of these things, I was over 2 years old (but under 3).

How did you develop as a child & do you think there a pattern between autism spectrum conditions & early or delayed child development?

First of all, I shouldn't be considered to be used as a sample for your poll despite experiencing certain symptoms of aspergers (think schizoid-line of aspergers or possibly schizoid teen) like lack of sociability, cold expression, and intentional isolation. Voted option #1. I had precocious development as there are noticeable difference in my way of thinking and bone age.

Autistics typically have skill scatter. That's probably why the delayed and precocious option is so often selected, since if you have skill scatter there's a higher chance for both your strengths and weaknesses to fall outside normal range.

In my case, I walked early (11 months), talked at the normal age, and by the age of 5 was clearly verbally precocious (saying my toy monkey had a prehensile tail, for example - rainforests were my obsession).

My areas of delay showed up a bit later - I was really slow to move past training wheels on my bike. Then, as a teenager, I was noticeably behind in independence. Right now, at 22, I'm starting to figure out some skills teenagers normally have, such as staying home several days without a parent.

I was precocious in many things (talking, reading, walking, writing, etc.) but with talking, I had a speech impediment until I was approximately seven or eight years of age, and I have a very unusual grip on writing utensils to this day because I showed an interest in writing starting at one year of age. I showed an interests in numbers/letters since infancy, and I began walking at nine months. I taught myself many things, so I figured out my own way to do it long before peers. I'm like most with AS in the sense that I did many of these academic things precociously, yet my social development was either normal in some aspects, but in many, delayed. Then with other things, I was merely on time. So, precocious, normal, and delayed. It just depends on the aspect.

I didn't really know what to pick. I was normal in terms of walking. Speech was greatly delayed. Reading/spelling was precocious though, and I wrote well as soon as I was in primary and actually began writing.

Although I spoke early, i refused to communicate. I learned to play piano at two, and was reading at four. I scared my parents.

I walked early, talked early and read early, and was a precocious speaker, I believe.
However, I remember having great trouble doing up my tie for school, in spite of being shown each day, and doing up laces and such things.
I am still not great with laces, truth be told.
I was also not very independent at all and not good at things like cleaning my room.

It's known that people with autism have larger brains than their peers until the end of childhood, at which point NT brains catch up. Perhaps related.

I would say I was precocious in some things but I can't be sure how much of that is due to AS and how much is due to upbringing (e.g. parents, and the fact that my 'friends' I played sports with in the street were all a year older than me)

I was reading on a middle school level before I was ever able to ride a bike without training wheels.

This is sort of confusing. I had language delays (among other issues) to the point that I was closer linked to Classic Autism as a toddler, thus the PDD-NOS diagnosis. However, when I did start to catch up with my language issues, I was way ahead of my peers with my language skills (I was spelling large words Deoxyribonucleic acid when I was 5). As for reading, I could describe events of the Revolutionary War, Mexican War, Civil War, and The Two World Wars to my parents when I was seven. My vocabulary was rather expansive for my age. Of course, I was behind socially still, so it seems liked AS.....

I chose the the precocious/delayed, but I'm still not sure.....

My physical development was delayed (speaking of puberty, I hit it at the normal age) but the mental one was precocious and I always thought I was so weird just because I was gifted. In many respects, as a kid, I wasn't a little girl but a little adult I was a very rationally thinking child, I knew many things normal kids have no idea about.

I was both precocious and delayed. I think my biggest delay is in social skills and executive function; in both of those I tend to have about half-speed development or so (in other words, at 28 I am functioning about as well as the average fourteen-year-old in those areas). I may never have the same on-the-fly executive functioning ability as an NT does, but I compensate a great deal with my ability to think logically and solve problems.

As far as precocious goes, my biggest talent has always been written language and reading. I learned to read sometime before the age of four. My first language was German; I learned English at six, and by six-and-a-half was reading English fluently; by nine I was reading books at the adult level, and by twelve, post-graduate in topics of special interest. I went to the state spelling bee without any practice when I was twelve, and have won multiple contests in writing.

My IQ tests all show extreme scatter, the entire extent of which can't be deduced because I started hitting ceilings on the adult test when I was quite young; at the same time, I was below average or average on other subscores. Two years ago, my worst subscore was in the picture-sequence test, which requires some social reasoning; I had to try to figure it out from cause-and-effect, and was only partially successful.

This scatter puts me in the odd position of having many things in common both with geniuses and with developmentally delayed people. I have to admit that maybe without the variability in my own abilities, I might never have learned to try to connect those two worlds, especially since the autism spectrum covers them both--often simultaneously in the same individual. There are quite a few things both groups have in common, though--and more in common than they have with the people in the average range! I wonder whether we might not benefit from merging special education and gifted programs; atypical children in both groups might benefit from each others' company.

Precocious first, then delayed, or missing altogether. I fancy I can see the change in childhood photos. At three I'm active, bright, laughing and unrecognizable to my adult self. At six I'm heavier, stiff and half turned away from the camera, a person I know very well. After that there are very few photos, as I wouldn't let myself be photographed.