What makes you assume a person is autistic?

[CagerUmbonate]

I’m autistic and I don’t think it’s obvious at all but that’s not the feedback I’m getting from other people. I’ve heard/read other autistic people say that when they disclose they are autistic they are often not believed because they are high masking. I think I am high masking but no one has ever once been remotely surprised when I’ve mentioned my autism. Usually they say they already knew.

Last week at work a reasonable adjustment was inadvertently overlooked. Later a colleague apologised and I remarked that it was understandable and easy to forget because I know I don’t seem autistic. They laughed! I felt like such a weirdo.

I know no one here can tell me why I appear to others to be autistic as you cannot see me or verbally interact with me. But what is it in general about a person that might lead to think they are autistic?

I don’t think there is anything remarkable about my outward appearance. I’m quite plain, I don’t tend to wear makeup and my hair is boring - all one natural colour usually in a ponytail. I’m not stylish - I wear comfortable clothes (jeans/joggers and t-shirt) in plain dark colours. I don’t carry fidget toys or wear headphones or anything.

I have been bullied my whole life (especially as child) around facial expressions, tone of voice and use of language. Could that be an indicator?

I would just like to be able to blend in a bit better!

Smell? As in, not washed?

Perhaps not washed or not washed and dried clothes properly..not a 'mucky ' smell Perhaps rather slightly foisty.

I'd not assume autistic people don't wash, and id not assume an unwashed person was autistic. But the combined factors in those two cases meant I noticed autism.

I have an ex who has ASD who was incredibly hygienic but had a lot of other factors that made the ASD obvious. Same stance and facial expression in every photo. Social awkwardness.. not much in means of conversation. I was in her ASD assessment and such traits were noted.

I have a close friend with ASD, very good job involving computing and mathematics but questionable hygiene. E.g he'll stay over for 2 nights and not bring a change of clothes nor go in the shower.

I had a lodger with ASD some time ago. He was also quite hygienic in himself but not in the house.. e.g. he thought 'clean' was the same thing as 'tidy'. I'm quite messy but I'm clean. He would become annoyed if the remote was on a different arm of the sofa to normal but never wiped anything down.
I am sure this isnt an ASD trait, I think just coincidence but all three of these people in my life had a slight to not-so-slight obsession with the loo in one way or another.

For me it is the eyes, there is just something in their eyes. But I think that is something only someone who is ND or who is surrounded by ND family/friends will pick up on.

Both mine and DPs best friends have had a diagnosis in the past year (Weirdly, they've got the same birthday. From this point forward I'm going to assume anyone born on the 8th April is autistic!)

When my friend told me, my reaction was "Well duh!" Her choice of career alone made it fairly likely. Couple that with a deep all-encompassing love of trains and an inability to deal with any room with more than one conversation going on, and it was fairly obvious.

DP's friend on the other hand, we were most surprised about. Turns out she masks incredibly well, but then would go home completely overloaded and trash the place. She's much happier now she's not forcing herself into situations she can't cope with, and has found better coping mechanisms

Former primary school teacher here. I’ve taught lots of autistic children in my time and some were easier to identify than others. The child who could tell me the name of every dinosaur complete with their eating habits and wanted to spend all day every day building complicated structures from plastic bricks was pretty easy to identify, as were the children who struggled to self regulate during sudden changes and didn’t mind giving me a hefty whack in response. I also had a child though who was incredibly compliant, quite shy and reserved and just the sort of child who would go under the radar in a larger school (I taught in a small rural primary). It was really hard to square with the child mum described as totally losing it when she got home, chucking things around and yelling at her brother! She was the child I worried about most because she masked so well I was concerned she would get missed as she got older. The children who are loud and bouncing off the walls don’t get missed but the quieter ones who mask often do. This little one needed as much support as the loud ones.

Having said all that, I completely failed to spot that my own niece is autistic, which I still feel
awful about. She is one of the high achieving maskers who just found secondary school
harder and harder to cope with. As soon as she was diagnosed I thought ‘Of course, there’s x,y, z reasons why that makes sense’ but it didn’t occur to me at the time. Maybe because to be she’s just DN who I love and accept for who she is. She’s coping so much better now she knows why she feels the way she does and those around her understand her triggers and needs.

Please don’t think that you have to learn to ‘blend in’, you’re great as you are. I’d hate to think my DN was bending herself in two to feel more acceptable to everyone else. Society needs difference and as humans we need to accept and embrace difference - we all have something to learn from each other. My lovely DIL teaches in a special school and is firmly of the belief that neurodiversity is a gift to society. Many of the advances and inventions that we have came from
a neurodiverse person who was able
to think outside the box in a way that a neurotypical person couldn’t. Just be you.
😊

I think a couple of my colleagues are likely to have autism (think they probably aren't actually aware of it themselves)- for completely polar opposite reasons in terms of their traits and behaviours!! I don't think what makes me think someone has autism is easy to define because it looks very different in different people. I have a neurofunky wider family though so I'm pretty aware of it and easily see traits.

I would suggest though, that an alternative to blending in is to try to learn to embrace your quirks and be proud of them. I have kids who are likely to be ND (awaiting diagnosis), and I've taken the approach in our house that being quirky is to be embraced- having a diagnosis may useful to understand why they find some things harder than other people would, but also that it's not something to be ashamed of and being a bit weird is a cool thing in its own right. What I really want for them is for them to be happy and comfortable in their own skin.

When I see it in others around me, it doesn't make me think any worse of them, but probably does mean I'll take a slightly gentler/more patient approach with the person to make sure they're OK and on board rather than just expecting them to find it easy to flex, for example.

I wouldn't really know it about a colleague I don't think. I had a couple of friends who were diagnosed and they both were very intelligent in one or two very specific ways. Seemingly very able to take in and remember information about these subjects. Also they would talk a lot about these things in a very in depth way. They weren't very good at 'small talk', but were very fun, funny, interesting to be around.

Certainly not appearance. It’s mannerisms and way of communicating, but even then I wouldn’t necessarily think autistic. My niece has profound autism so I’m used to much more obvious behaviours associated with autism (she’s non verbal and has learning disabilities).

As an autistic woman I do have something of a radar for other autistic people. The signs? Social awkwardness, difficulty with eye contact, talking at length about particular interests, unusual tone of voice... None of those traits spell autistic on their own but when they're combined it's quite likely. I myself have a weird accent for the place I'm from and people ask me about it constantly. I was bullied heavily as a child too for being different.

That said, there are some autistic people who are very confident social chameleons and I wouldn't notice them.

Out of genuine interest, how do facial expressions, tone of voice and use of language indicate autism? What would be general pattern or commonalities?

What is this unusual tone of voice please? tia

I met someone at a birthday party last week who I thought was autistic. Here were the behaviours that made me think this:

• Asked their father a rude question about the appearance of another guest right in front of that person.
• When the music came on, they made a comment about their displeasure about it.
• Wouldn’t sit in their own chair—insisted on sharing a chair with their father. Refused to sit in the kids’ area—sat in a shared chair, not their own chair, in the adult area.
• Didn’t display an ability to go with the flow of the party. It felt like they had their own agenda for the party and they didn’t have the skills to pivot from their agenda and join in.

Do you like her, is she pleasant to be around? What way does she speak, could she just be shy?

@Kumquatzest

That said, there are some autistic people who are very confident social chameleons and I wouldn't notice them

This is why most of my acquaintances either have no idea I have an ASD diagnosis, or are surprised and disbelieving when they find out.

I am an enormous masker, always have been right back to childhood. I don't generally struggle with social interaction, because my little giveaway signs are consciously masked. I force myself to make eye-contact, even though I still do so far less than is typical. When I'm anxious I forget to mask and I act in no different a way to what is perceived to be typical in ASD people, but ordinarily there is not much about me that gives it away.

I have learned how to do facial expression, but I've realised recently that I do an exaggerated version of it, so if someone is really on the ball they would see that and recognise it as yet another learned behaviour. I still struggle with the "active listening" thing, in that I don't affirm what someone is saying while they are talking. I tend to listen completely impassively, then I'll take a few moments to consider my response, censor what I really want to say, and then give them a diluted or slightly less blunt version of it.

The things I struggle with are more to do with home life, and unless you'd seen my home you wouldn't know. It's not that I'm messy, undomesticated, or unhygienic, on the contrary. I'm obsessive about my house being "just so", and since I can't tolerate ornamentation, sentimental things like photos and posters etc, I'm sure to most people it would appear to be stark and functional, but that's how I need it to be in order to be comfortable. I'm almost a recluse in that I tend not to leave the house unless it's something unavoidable like work, and as I have no interest in having other people in my home, very few people ever see it, which is another reason why they tend to be a bit taken aback if I disclose my Autism.

Op, I can’t really answer your question but as the mum of a 33 year old son who is severely autistic, his diagnosis is Classic Kanners Autism and I’ll only ever call it that, the only thing I can say is that it’s very obvious to me when I meet someone who is on the spectrum even if they’re not aware of it themself. There are so many subtleties to it, I can’t really explain it but I just know. It can be so obvious and I’m also referring to so called HFA here.

A flatish monotone tone of voice with very little inflection can also be an indication.

Self absorbed??

What in the eyes would you say?

This is something I’m scared to ask. Am I obviously Autistic or not? I’ve kept my knowledge of my ND to myself so I haven’t had to deal with reactions from people who don’t live with me.

I do see blunt face when I watch old videos of myself. I think I just look like a regular woman who’s in a bit of a mood for some reason.

I've been told repeatedly down the years that I perpetually look "angry" or like I'm spoiling for a fight. That's not my persona at all, and it always surprises me when I'm told this, but frankly I don't care and I'm not about to weld a gormless grin to my face just to appease other people.

@CagerUmbonate This is just my opinion and I'm no expert, but here are the traits I would notice:

strong and prolonged focus on a subject (to the exclusion of all else) coupled with detailed knowledge of subject. A strength in my opinion

I know the person is there, but they appear to be somewhere else too

not bothering too much with social niceties - direct with speech

they want you to be direct with them, otherwise they don't understand what you're waffling on about and will get bored of you quickly. Other people frustrate them with inconsequential chatter. They might interrupt to shut them up and talk about something more meaningful

can get quite upset about (or fascinated with) what other people think are small, insignificant details. It may be a noise, a mark on a screen, an aroma, something wrong with dinner

they will tend to observe, rather than be the centre of a group, because they know they are outliers and they don't really trust the group anyway

sometimes though, they'll launch into a group discussion unexpectedly and may say something surprising or inappropriate (with no obvious context) so the group will feel confusion, want to ridicule them or even feel hostility

they're not really into you or your problems, which can make people think they're uncaring. It bores and frustrates them. They want you to like what they like.

they'll feel superior to others, because others say and do such stupid things. They won't understand the point of others. That's why they are often happy to go it alone.

OP, there's autism and ADHD in my family, but as I said, I'm no expert.

I do make an effort to soften my face for people sometimes but I’m probably getting it wrong and looking like a loon 😅

Way before I had any inclination about ND I always had a feeling my face was wired wrong because people sometimes misunderstood the way I was trying to come across and got pissed off with me.

No, this is good! I nodded along to your list.

@Tinymrscollings "talk and move like they're performing in a play". I love that! Made me laugh. Perhaps they are. They've just rustled up a bunch of characters to act and sound like ... and off they go. Are a lot of actors autistic, I wonder?

I have an autistic sister and I can always tell when someone is autistic but its hard to explain what it is!