I'm going to be doing a research project on ASD and I'll nee

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Hi there, I'm going to be doing a research project on ASD and I'll need some volunteers, and I'll explain exactly what I need

First thing's first, I myself was diagnosed with Asperger's, and I wanted to research something that I see quite a lot of people with ASD mention on the forums, that is people with ASD (more specifically Aspergers) tend to look younger than their actual age.

Thing is that I couldn't find any actual research into this, so I set out to do my own.

Here is the basic outline of it.

Participants will be completing a 30 question form, asking them to guess the ages of the people in the form. Ideally they will not know that this survey relates to ASD, as it will be a blind experiment for them. 15 of the people will have ASD while 15 other people will not have ASD. The question order will be randomized as well. After that the I'll average all of the predicted ages and compare the guesses of the people with ASD to people without it and we’ll see if there is difference between the two groups, if indeed some people with ASD look younger than they appear.

Now this isn't perfect, but after some number crunching I'll determine if this is actually something worth investigating, or if it's not.

I will then post the results here.


This is basically what the form will look like, with an image for each question.

Now if you'd you like to take part this experiment, PM me a picture of yourself followed by the age of yourself in that picture. The picture has to be appropriate of course, nothing stupid please. Ideally the picture should be some sort of bust shot of your face, as the experiment is about facial characteristics primarily. You will of course remain anonymous.

As for the controls without ASD, I'll work on that later. If you have a NT friend who is willing to participate, that's great.

Thank you very much!

I wonder if you should be providing an age and asking if that is true or false...?


BTW, many many people judge me about 15 years my junior.

With actual number guesses it allows fancy stuff like linear regression and a lot more detailed statistical analysis.

If weren't using linear regression what tolerance will you be allow for getting it right? A lot of people get this wrong anyway!

I'm not 100 percent certain yet to be quite honest! Although I should get to that...
Once I have the numbers I'll work with them.

Very interesting! I'd be curious to see what you come up with!

Is this to be a FB quiz?

I haven't heard this before, but it makes sense. I'm 25 and look like a teenager. People always tell me I look like a baby.

Interesting idea. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence that people with AS look younger than they are, so it's good that someone is doing actual research into it.

I look forward to seeing the results when you post them.

Fifteen people is not a statistically significant sample size. Your results will be deemed scientifically invalid because of this. Try contacting someone in a university psychology department to develop a study in which the results can be statistically analyzed.

I'm completely aware of that. The reason why the sample size is so small is because realistically I do not see myself obtaining such a large enough group of people to participate in the experiment. Plus, I'm only taking AP Biology, I don't plan on having it scientifically validated, I just want to see if the numbers have any shred of significance.

In an ideal situation I'd have maybe some hundred or so Aspies and some hundred or so control, with many, many different people estimating and approximating their ages of maybe 30 or so of the entire group, combining to have different people predicting the ages of other different people.

That is a pretty good idea however, to contact a uni department, (and it would fantastic on a resume), but I have no experience whatsoever in that kind of territory. If I got that underway that would be mind-blowingly incredible, I just don't know exactly what to expect, what to do, etc.

No it will be a google form.

Ask on here if everyone who is ASD can send you a face photo of themself and tell you what age they are (or what age they were when their photo was taken). You might get more than 15 photos this way. The other idea is to also include an equal number of photos of people who are not ASD, as a comparison. Doing it this way should sufficiently impress your teachers.

This is a good topic. I've come across some journal articles about autistic faces as I research my own topic, which is autistic adults in the workplace. I'm finishing up a Masters in Sociology.

Autistics seem to use less tiny muscle movements in their faces, especially around the eyes. The less you use a muscle, the less you're able to use the muscle and as time goes on, there is no wrinkle in that area. That's how botox works. It paralyzes the muscle so the wrinkle goes away. Autistic people have natural botox.

If you PM me an email address I can look up the articles I found this information from and email it to you so you can read it and cite it for your paper.

BTW- I also have some next level Uncanny Valley literature if anyone would like that. That is the phenomenon where people get creeped out by a face that is not exactly human. There's a casual theory that this happens to neurotypical people as they gaze at autistics because they do not get the same mirrored expressions back.

I'd like to see your Uncanny Valley literature. Please email it to mollytroubletail@yahoo.com. Thanks!

That's exactly what I'm doing.
Unfortunately I haven't received a single PM yet...