Not appearing to be autistic on home movies/videos

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Home movies of me as a child in the 1950s and 1960s show me interacting and playing with my parents, siblings and other relations. I don't appear to be autistic (on the autism spectrum) on these movies. Do people here appear to be autistic on home movies/videos of them as children?

^ Hence thats why its very difficult for many to discover they have it.

Honestly, kids all act silly and stupid initially so that also makes it harder to judge. When i look back at home videos, the only things i can notice is my constant need to day dream and just general ADD. I do however socialise a little, but i always had a lost expression and poor eye contact. Some of my emotions also didn't seem very appropriate for the particular settings i was in either.

I seem pretty odd in old videos I have seen of me as compared to the other people in the videos.

I only have pictures, and it's very evident in them that something is amiss in the ones under the age of 5 or so.

My family also doesn't have videos from my childhood. Only photographs.

I'm looking cute but different from other children on many of them. No idea if I look autistic though.

On some I do. When I'm looking away from everyone or holding my hands over my ears. But about the rest - no idea, I'm not an ASD expert that could read such things into photos.

In childhood photos, I look like a normal-but-intense little boy, up until the age of about 8 or so, when I began to resemble a female version of Pugsly Adams.

I don't know, I think I may have looked more normal in videos of me as a young child, but I think I may look more autistic in the more recent home videos.

In the pictures where I'm 3, I'm not looking at the camera in most of them, and there's some of my bedroom where I have all of my toys lined up. I started looking at the camera and smiling around 6 or so, and it stayed this way until I was 14 or so. Then my photos changed in the latter years of high school, where I stopped smiling and started showing the "flat affect" (as well as ignoring people completely).

They say that above is a common pattern for someone with Autistic Disorder to follow (bad, good, and then back to bad).

Woodpeace,
photographs are not part of criteria so it doesnt mean are not autist if do not 'look autistic' on them,some people do use it as if it is part of criteria but thats probably because they're ignorant and dont want to include milder forms with less stereotypical behavior under autism.

everyone here [apart from Danielismyname] are lucky that their family had a video recorder,never experienced one here until around twenty,and thats only because had got one [a sony cybershot] for self.
it was paper photo type cameras only,and dad has mostly taken photos of sister as all the photo albums are full of her,theres only a few of am,less from around early years and they are all strongly typical to autism,seems to be visible as early as the first photos taken- as a baby.

dont think would be able to spot sister as an aspie just by her photos.

When I read reports about me, I sounded handicapped and slow, and the things my mother say about me about the problems I used to have when I was little, well when I watch the home videos, I look normal. I mat not have talked when I was little but I still seemed normal. When I was five I was talking but I was really hard to understand and when I was six I was easy to understand because I started to say words correctly.

Why is it that I seemed normal in the videos and I seemed abnormal in my reports and out of my mother's mouth? My mother said I had always put on a show for the camera. I would be really careful how I appeared on camera. I did a good job then or my behavior seems normal to me.

My guess was it was because I was at home and there was nothing to trigger the symptoms and my Dad probably took them when I wasn't having any symptoms. But I did catch the patterns I did with my brother's toy and with my own bead set and my mother tells me to not swing them because I might hit something with them. My dad did catch a video of me throwing snowballs at him but they didn't go very far, I had troubles throwing them. There is a part in the video where I just got a new toy where you wind it up and watch the person ride the bike and I talked about it none stop till my brothers got up. I seemed different in some parts of the movies just by the way I stood or sat. Oh yeah my voice be loud too when I talked.

There's a photo of me and the rest of my pre-school class still sitting around. Everybody in the photo was smiling except me and one other kid. My face was all red and teary eyed; Apparently I didn't like getting my picture taken as a youngster.

I always seem to have a dark cloud over me...I am glowering and looking away in a crowd of my smiling cheery sibling and cousins...My eyes have dark circles..I look brooding and uncomfortable.
This mainly pertains to photos of me that were taken after the age of 6 or 7..before that, I looked very neutral in most photos, and I resembled the little boy from the Shining. My hair was blonder..I am never smiling, but I look relaxed...

It's visible in home movies of me as a child as long as someone's aware of quite subtle symptom presentation.


E.g.

- I turn my face away and go completely limp when my mother tries to hug me. (In contrast, my siblings allow themselves to be kissed on the face, return affection, and seek it out.)

- I use my siblings as tools when I need them (dragging them where I want them to go) and mostly ignore them the rest of the time

- I notice perseverance now and then

- I occasionally produce some really odd vocalizations and facial expressions

I hate looking back at my past. So much pain. There are only a few things I honestly enjoy looking at, and those are things to do with gaming and tv, and my grandparents.

I actually seem more weird in videos of me. Not autistic - just weird.

I don't have the video any more but I remember one from many years ago that my grandparents took. I must have been about 5. They were video taping my sister as she showed them how good she was at skipping rope. The entire time (I'd say about 5 minutes) I was standing a ways behind her & off to the side staring at the floor 20 feet in front of me with my head cocked to one side and completely unblinking. Then, I shifted my weight, blinked once, tilted my head to the opposite side and continued for another 5 minutes.

It makes me laugh because I was a pretty 'spacey' child. I beleive I remember that situation. I was not really daydreaming, I was just 'shut off', withdrawn, because my sister was in the spotlight and I was content just waiting there in my head, not thinking anything in particular until she was done. Like.. there was no need for me to be acting animated if no one was watching.