I think I can recognize Asperger's just by looking at people

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The other day, I was looking at my childhood photos and right off the bat I could tell I was an Aspie. In most of the photos, I basically have the same facial expression, like I'm freezing or something! And even in the ones where I'm smiling you can tell that it was basically an "emulation" of the 'expected' human behavior, and not a genuine expression.

It's difficult to explain but... you can tell that my upper face (eyes, forehead, eyebrows) is not in 'sync' with my lower face. It's like I'm just spreading my cheeks (< I know).

Another thing I'm starting to notice is that my forehead basically has no wrinkles and I'm 33! I just don't use the upper part of my face to express my feelings, merely because I don't know how to.

I've been also watching interviews of Aspies on YouTube etc. and in most cases, it's actually quite apparent... at least to me.

P.S While I've Asperger's, I don't face difficulty recognizing other's facial expressions.

I was severely autistic as a child. Not Aspergian.

One cannot tell that I was autistic on the basis of photographs of me.

I do not have... whatever the ASD version of gaydar is. I've only met one person who was very obvious in his mannerism and speech patterns, everyone else I've met who said they were on the spectrum didn't appear to be unless I got to know them more.

i dont think i look autistic

OP:

unlike down syndrome, asperger's does not have a "look".

furthermore, standard operating procedure requires a psychologist that specializes in autism spectrum disorders, to make that diagnosis. even then, they do not just look at a picture of the client to differentiate between "asperger's" and "neurotypical".

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Caz:

Among the many people that I disclosed my autism diagnosis to, by far, the most popular statement they told me: "you don't look autistic."

I can’t tell if someone is autistic from photos, but I can suspect it immediately right after communicating with them. Usually when I talk to neurotypicals I can feel a theoretical wall between us. However, when I talk to autistics, we click better. It doesn’t feel like a theoretical wall is between us.

autism seems to be based on stereotypes so if you make regular eye contact and can have a conversation without talking about your special subject and you dont speak in monotone or flap your hands or rock or whatever then you will likely get away with passing off as nonautistic at least

Sometimes one is able to tell if a person has autistic traits, but that may not be the same as the person actually being autistic.

I do not think looking at pictures of yourself or aspie vloggers is a good test of your "aspiedar" abilities.

I've been to many socials now for autistic adults. MOST do not "seem" or "act" autistic. Lower functioning ones you can tell immediately. HFA's it may start being apparent as they explain things, and I see their quirks with mannerisms and facial expressions, but MOST simply seem like "normal" people -- yet they've been diagnosed on the spectrum. My giveaway may be little facial expression and the way I describe things, maybe looking away too much WHILE I describe or explain. Outside of that, I don't have any odd mannerisms or peculiar prosody or weird looks on my face. Are these typical-appearing auties masking? Maybe, maybe not. I'd think they wouldn't be masking much AMONG EACH OTHER. My lack of peculiar prosody or mannerisms isn't masking. It's jsut that I don't happen to have these traits with my autism. I have plenty others, though!

Everyone who you have described that you could tell were austistic, you knew they were all austistic beforehand. Do you see how that might cast doubt on your superpower?

People couldn't tell I was aspie just by my appearance. but then again Asperger's wouldn't even be officially recognized until 1994, and even now NT people think saying you have Asperger's is Nazi and ableist. Sorry, I didn't mean to offend myself.

Actually...people wouldn't think those with Asperger's are "ableist and Nazi."

Most people don't know Hans Asperger. They almost certainly wouldn't know his Nazi connections.

I've never been diagnosed with Aspergers; I was diagnosed with classic autism when I was a very young child in the 1960s. I would never be diagnosed with Aspergers because I had a major speech delay.

Well… need to say here is you could judge autism et Al. By appearance . Then something is very weird ..
Because by appearances , my Younger sister who was pretty much completely non verbal .. had much more of a traditional NT appearance than most all aspies , i have met . Nothing in her face . Even when she was not responding. Would betray anything of a Aspie look .. even on her worst days . Her face had more of a knowing look.
And we lived in the same location until she was 15 vears old. A lot of her hour to hours physical interactions might have betrayed the situation .

Knowing beforehand was irrelevant. In fact, at numerous functions I've asked people if they were autistic because there were NTs at these functions. I was trying to find autistic people to introduce myself to, and it was simply a matter of keep asking till I get a hit.

There were others for whom it was obvious based on hygeine or condition of their body (higher rate of sedentary lifestyle among even HFAs). But as far as quirky strange body movements and mannerisms, I've found this to be quite uncommon among HFAs. I'd never know it for the vast majority. In fact, before I embarked on my dx journey, I would've passed off the quirkier ones as geeks, nerds and just really smart people rather than, "Hmmm, he's autistic!"