the physical signs of aspergers

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I think we have a bit of a "look" about us, and a few little giveaways, but I think we know what to look for. Odd posture, unusual gait, flat affect face (or resting b***h face in my case).

I think it's possibly a little harder to tell in Aspies who, like myself, were diagnosed in mid life. But I'm 46 and I wear converse and batman tshirts and my face looks much younger. Always did look much younger, even in my childhood, would be mistaken for 5 at the age of 10.

All part of life's rich pattern, eh....

Of the few oddities, I have noticed:

- I am told the way I walk is strange. I have a bouncy walk and walk on my toes a bit.
- I have a child-like voice.
- Leg-bouncing.
- I have a very stiff posture.

- G

I seriously doubt that there are any purely physical differences in people with Asperger's. We may look different based on how we hold our face or smile, or be built different due to lack of exercise, or have odd posture or gait, but other than that, I don't think there's any difference. I have a few things that stand out like being very tall and thin, having slight scoliosis, having long arms and a long neck, and having a prominent dimple in my chin, but my neurotypical mother has all of those characteristics, so it's probably not due to Asperger's.

If all of these "physical signs" were accurate, then ASDs would be easier to diagnose. Also, every thread here that's about physical features in Autism seem to state different ones each time, as though these physical features are just invented by people on the spectrum picking random features on their body what have nothing to do with their neurological condition.

I was often told that I walked funny when I was younger. My eyes are very deep-set-almost cavernous, but a bit narrowly spaced for the size of my big head. While I have short arms and broad shoulders, my neck pushes my head forward and I have very prominent brows and a broad forehead. My eldest daughter (also likely on the spectrum, testing next month) often says that I look very much like artistic renderings of a Neanderthal except for the lower slope of the forehead and I actually do have a chin. I honestly think that except for some cases in which microcephaly is an issue, the look thing would be very hit or miss. The body in motion would be where the more likely determination would come from.

It is all so FALSE.

Every so-called sign or symptom can be explained away with normal behavior, normal development, or other common disorders. For instance, there is a much wider range of normal behaviors than autistic behaviors.

There is no “Aspie-dar”. It’s all in your imaginations.

I definitely fell for the Baader-Meinhof effect (frequency illusion) for a while following my diagnosis. In examining my behaviours from a new perspective, I started noticing them all around me, reinforcing and reinforced by the imposter syndrome that I went through at first - either I wasn't an Aspie, or it was so common as to be unremarkable; or so it seemed. A little later, I disclosed my diagnosis to a small circle of trusted friends - and discovered that two of them had also been diagnosed not long prior to me. I would never have guessed they they were the two who might have this in common with me, nor had either of them guessed that about me. We'd all known each other for well over a decade.

To most of us to a greater or lesser extent, it's natural that we think of our own experience of autism as the definitive one. As I think this thread demonstrates, this can easily lead to the faulty reasoning; I'm autistic; I have trait X; therefore everyone with trait X is autistic. For casual encounters, there is no opportunity to be contradicted, and not having been proved wrong isn't the same as being proved right. I do know a couple of people who, only after many very long discussions about our reasoning and perceptual processes, I've reached a consensus with that there are reasonable grounds for suspicion (one is currently seeking formal diagnosis.) But fantasising that every person who walks a little strangely might be a potention Aspie-buddy? No, I've learned my lesson.