Do you have an aspie-dar?

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You know how some people claim to have a gay-dar ie, they can detect gays? I'm pretty confident in my ability to detect a person with Aspergers. Give me a minute to observe someone's speech and mannerisms and I can come up with a pretty confident conclusion. My mom watches Parenthood, and the first time I saw the show (I'd walked in to the room mid-episode) I just knew instinctively that the little boy had Aspergers. Same with the bug fanatic, who I positively identified despite only seeing the last 5 minutes of that episode.

So is this a common thing, for people with Aspergers to have asipe-dars? How sharp is you asipe-dar?

Yes, sometimes.
Sometimes it is more obvious than other times, and I won't for a moment say that I can detect most people - but sometimes, the clues are there and overwhelming and you just know that at the very least there are some distinct traits there.

I can usually tell pretty easily, and so can my mom.

Mine is pretty unsharp, but I spot some traits here and there. I bet you couldnt identify me as one either.

Yeah, I think I am pretty good at telling who has AS. I can also pick out non-straight people too. But then again, I grew up around both AS & non-straight people. So maybe it's just because I was exposed to people who were different.

^ I think that would certainly be a factor - you know what to look out for, I guess.

My Aspie dar is extremely sharp. One guy was genuinely shocked because nobody else guessed it.

I have a special needs- dar. I can tell there is someone with special needs just by walking into a room sometimes, it's creepy. I just can't tell you WHAT it is they have.

In all my years of working with kids, I've not been wrong about one child I've brought up concerns about.

yeah i have that. i was once surprised by a girl who told me i had as and then told me she didn't and she read about it in a book

Ya, they have to make the Aspie characters a little exaggerated on tv though. But I love that show! In fact, we should have a thread about it. Personally I have come across people who I suspected may be Aspies but have never had any way of knowing. Except for 2 weeks ago when I saw a member of our Aspie group I had never met, but my friend had , and I thought he looked kind of Aspieish, and then my friend told me he was after.

mine is not infallible, but generally when i see one i think to myself, "ah, a thermian!" but there are also "full NT emulation mode" aspies that often slip beneath my radar. i was in the army with a bunch of 'em.

I think I can spot them pretty well, although of course I've never gone up to someone and asked. I saw one last week, older guy, on his own, walking throught town, wearing a backpack, hand touching the shop windows as he passed, and walking out in front of a car (it was creeping along, so was able to stop in time). I nearly jumped out of my skin as I was too far away to do anything. Then last night, I was at a show and felt my aspie-dar was working when I saw this guy. Turned out he was the sound engineer (good job for an Aspie?). It's not uncommon for such people to look back at me as if they've spotted one too (although I don't think I'm obvious to the general population).

AS is easy to mistake for schizophrenia, schizoid or BPD and a few others PDD's are mixed fairly close. I think their is a few sub species of aspie, but am unwilling to elaborate due to only superficial observations

I miss a few if I'm busy or distracted. Women are far more difficult for me, but its hard to get close to a women and ask questions compared to men.

Even enties have many sub species of body types, neurology, race characteristics. Children tend to be more homogenised and same when compared to adults. I guess adults have adopted unique habits and patterns.... whereas children all probably go to bed at 7pm and eat similar foods with no espresso, booze, meds or unique thought forms hovering over their psyche, or affecting their energy field.

Its like picking out Italians or whatever and not that hard really

My aspiedar is pretty ok. I've picked out a number of kids just in random passing, and the few times I actually asked their parents if they were autistic/AS to confirm, I was right. Of course, said parents went on to interrogate me at length about what to expect from their child, and they tend to dislike the honest answers I give ... um, so I try to just keep my stupid mouth shut when I see an AS (with parents attached.) It hurts me to bottle it up though. Physically.

My gaydar is severely defective, however. Unless I only can detect the closeted, which is highly implausible.

there are lots of effeminate straight men to fool those with faulty [IOW non-psychic] gaydar. in the army i knew men who seemed gay but were straighter than an arrow, while i found out later about some very straight-acting men that they were indeed gay, or at least bi. for non-"sensitive" people, gleaning another's private life is fraught with pitfalls.

Some Aspies I can spot directly, some take more time. With children it is a bit easier, since they do not control their behaviour too much.