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Leon_Trotsky
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20 Dec 2019, 12:16 am

I have had a lot of physical clumsiness since a child. I am not disabled, but I never could coordinate my body properly like neurotypicals.

A few examples of clumsiness:

When I was 3, I slipped at the playground, fell into the sand, then a child on the swing accidentally swung right into my face. I have slipped down the stairs at home several times like an idiot. I have slipped and fallen in the home almost like the cartoons where someone puts a banana peel on the floor and someone steps on it and slips. I often accidentally slip when preparing food and accidentally cut my fingers with a fork or knife. I often hit my head on tables or walls, or even walk into closed doors. When I eat, even as a 30 year old, I accidentally pop food up with my fork and it flies all over the place, or drop glassware on the floor. Sometimes when I eat with a fork, my fingers slip and stick the fork into my gums, making them bleed. When I eat meat, I often cut the meat, but my hands slip and the meat flies out of my plate. When I attended gym class in school, I often fell down, hit my head by trying to throw the basketball into the hoop and it hits me back in the face, when I had to play kickball, I would miss with my kick and end up falling on my arse. I often drop containers of food all over the floor. When I urinate, I often miss the toilet bowl completely and end up urinating all over the floor. I accidentally rip my clothes when I put them on or take them off. I accidentally drop heavy things on my feet or on the floor and they break. I broke my glasses numerous times by accidentally walking into doors or walls.

Just this week, I accidentally ripped a few of my shirts after putting them on back-to-front, then turned it around on my body. I also accidentally ripped my expensive 400€ leather jacket by somehow putting the zipper on the leather part and zipping it up, instead of on the actual zipper part.

My mother, who also has Asperger's, is also quite clumsy. She often drops things out of her hands on accident. Her father (my grandfather) was extremely clumsy. The worst incident was when he was a boy in the 1930s, and during farmwork with a hoe, he missed the soil completely and swung the hoe vertically down into his foot. The hoe punctured his foot, and even came out of the other side. He had to be rushed to hospital.

Is ASD a cause of all of this clumsiness? I notice that only the family members who have ASD or were suspected of having it are often the clumsiest.



Benjamin the Donkey
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20 Dec 2019, 12:57 am

There seems to be a correlation, but I don't know what kind of studies have been done on this. I routinely trip over / walk into things, as does my AS son. My NT son rarely does this, and is actually very athletic.


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20 Dec 2019, 5:09 am

Not much help but I have mild dyspraxia. Autism seems to give you a lot of symptoms of other things. I can easily someone falling just outside the spectrum because I'm very clumsy and mine is mild. In general we tend to have many symptoms of other things.



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20 Dec 2019, 5:39 am

School reports mentioned my poor coordination. My stepdaughter has said I'm the clumsiest person she has known . It's not unusual for me to walk into things . When they were younger my granddaughters would say I needed a pelican bib because I was a messy eater .

When the subject of autism was raised , at my first psych assessment here in Wiltshire , the pdoc got me to do some things with my hands . After doing that he said I was quite dyspraxic .


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Edna3362
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20 Dec 2019, 6:21 am

I'm not clumsy in nature.

The closest thing I got for clumsiness is a form of inattention and overwhelm translated into behaviors and appearances.
As opposed to motor coordination/physical/spatial/visual related issues or learning disabilities commonly found amongst autistics.


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aquafelix
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20 Dec 2019, 6:47 am

I was super uncoordinated as a kid. DSM-5's Developmental Coordination Disorder (used to be called dyspraxia) is known to be a common co-occurring condition with ASD.



GiantHockeyFan
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20 Dec 2019, 7:16 am

I was (and still am) relatively uncoordinated. I imagine much of that has to do with being freakishly tall as a teenager although I have recently started go to a Physiotherapist. Turns out my knees are unequal in strength and I have extremely stiff hips: it will be interesting to see if this helps my lack of coordination.



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20 Dec 2019, 7:24 am

GiantHockeyFan wrote:
I was (and still am) relatively uncoordinated. I imagine much of that has to do with being freakishly tall as a teenager although I have recently started go to a Physiotherapist. Turns out my knees are unequal in strength and I have extremely stiff hips: it will be interesting to see if this helps my lack of coordination.


Interesting. My knees turn in because I'm hypermobile and that probably plays a part.



darkwaver
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21 Dec 2019, 5:01 pm

I'm fairly uncoordinated too. As a kid I was slower and less strong than the others, and it took me longer to learn to do anything physical the right way. It got a bit better as I grew up, but I've never been exactly graceful. I work on a computer all day and you can really see it when I use the mouse, that pointer just goes zooming in jagged circles around whatever I'm trying to click on, every time.



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21 Dec 2019, 10:39 pm

I’m pretty clumsy. I’m accidentally breaking stuff all the time. I’m as bad as a kid!

I think that, for me, it probably has more to do with inattention and a failure to focus than on physical coordination.


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21 Dec 2019, 10:48 pm

I worked on my coordination in my 40s. In my 50s I worked on my balance, as falls are very dangerous as you get old. I'd say I'm now above average in terms of balance and coordination. :D

In my 30s I worked on my handwriting. I can write very neatly, better than I did when I was in school.



Last edited by BTDT on 21 Dec 2019, 10:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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21 Dec 2019, 10:49 pm

I've always been clumsy and it's led to some fairly bad injuries throughout my life. Also, it's as if I'm magnetically drawn to walls and door frames since I bump into them a lot.



livingwithautism
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23 Dec 2019, 11:05 pm

I believe I have some level of dyspraxia.



Dear_one
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23 Dec 2019, 11:50 pm

I'm mildly clumsy, partly because my parents did not encourage play. I remember them giving me my first ball, and as I ran after it as it rolled, I accidentally kicked it farther. Dad seemed to expect to be disappointed that way, and mother did not care, so I didn't practice much more and fell steadily behind my peers. I also did not learn about the value of physical activity for health, thinking I should be more of a cyborg as much as possible.
I compensated by getting very good at bracing my body to keep my hand steady for work. I got lucky by using a bicycle as a logical way to get around. It guided my feet, and I enjoyed the challenge of riding efficiently, so I finally discovered fitness. My fine motor control seems pretty good for balance and such.



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27 Dec 2019, 12:20 pm

I cannot speak for everyone. But I have learned for myself that my clumsiness and "poor posture" are a result of where my brain & spine communicate to decide where my central balance is located. I found this out once with a prescribed medicine, a side-effect of it rebalanced me and gave me a proper posture. I felt like I was in a whole new body, I could feel where all my limbs were truly located, the bone & muscles included.
Whereas without the medication I now realize my body feels more like a vague blur on where it begins & ends.



SharonB
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27 Dec 2019, 1:17 pm

Edna3362 wrote:
I'm not clumsy in nature.

The closest thing I got for clumsiness is a form of inattention and overwhelm translated into behaviors and appearances.

That seems like me. I am well coordinated, but clumsy nonetheless. I am nervous around sharp objects (might hear something, spin around or jump and drop it on my toe). Ironically during my ASD assessment I knocked my tea cup off the table during a gesture.