Autistics who can read body language well

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I'm female ASD and completely the logical aspie type, albeit the selective mute type. The only vibe I get from people makes me really uncomfortable when there are too many or they are near me and I get away from them. I can't read body language and was completely oblivious to nonverbal body language usage until I learned I had an ASD. I analyze what people say word for word.

Just curious........has anyone read the Donna Williams link i started this thread with?

I would be v interested to hear from artists, philosophers, and right brained Aspies and weather they feel they are more able to understand Non verbal communication more so than their verbal and literal brothers and sisters in the spectrum?

The link didn't link but I will as I am interested. There's another poster here who writes a lot about right brained aspies. His name is Chris, I can't remember anymore.

I am both extremely verbal (twelve foreign languages have been special interests of mine, though I've at last picked just two I'm sticking with) and extremely philosophical to the extent that I'm constantly amazed at how poor most people prove themselves to be at that kind of reasoning. For example, exceptions real or theoretical to suggested rules come into my mind immediately and automatically on hearing them, while I have to spell out their relevance in painful detail to most people even though they've been believing and presumably thinking about the rule for years. I know that they know the rule is disproven and no longer believe the analogy was false when they have to make up another rule, sometimes completely unrelated.

I think that talent in both areas is quite normal, as evidenced by the quality of language within the majority of philosophers' essays and books, better even than that of top scholars from other fields.

Verbal intelligence includes the ability to notice when different definitions a word have been used without warning or invited into your mind, e.g. with the 'tree falling in the woods' riddle. Most people don't seem to notice that what they think of when they hear the word 'sound' changes while they're thinking about it (from the physical process that happens outside of our bodies that is accurately called 'sound', to the experience, 'sound'). I do notice things like that and it helps me with philosophical thought. The word 'life' is a word that people as a guide to drawing lines within moral issues, without realising that unless they define exactly what they mean by it, people are going to be able to mislead them with arguments that clandestinely switch the definition in use, or there will be misunderstandings, or they themselves will come to a false conclusion because they will use one definition while having one thought and switch to another definition when they get to the next thought. That last one never happens to me because I think of exactly what I mean, I don't get attached to the words used to represent it.

There's a Zen koan that I believe is about this phenomenon of getting confused or mislead by semantics:

Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said, "The flag is moving."

The other said, "The wind is moving."

The Sixth Patriarch happened to be passing by. He told them, "Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving."

In other words "you're just changing your definition of 'moving', knuckleheads".

Intresting read.

I was told by my last therapist what I already knew, that I can read emotions and body language off other people. But the difference is that I don't REACT to it correctly. I can tell someone is bored, but I keep talking because I have the urge to talk to much I ignore the proper thing to do.

When I take social skills tests off the internet, I know what the correct answers are, but I put in what I actually do and it comes out bad.

Honestly, I don't know what I am exactly

That's the same way I am.

Thank you for letting me know that the link did not work Aimless. And by the way, cos i got locked out my email 2 months ago I had to get a new one and hence new user-name at WP..........hence I am that chris fellow from London

Many here have mentioned their ability to read emotions and body language but find it difficult to react to others in what they describe an "appropriate' way. I can really relate to this.

Often, I feel I am super functional at interpreting others soul distress, but super dysfunctional and being able to convey my own beyond the intellectual expression.

Many times I have gone to hospital in either physical or mental distress yet been unable to convey my pain beyond the intellectual expression of it.

Consequently, if in pain these days I often find myself acting out the genuinely experienced distress I feel so as to be taken seriously.

The following quotation by Stevie Smith speaks volumes to me.

"I was much further out than you thought, and not waving but drowning."

On the other hand, having read through the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test thread, I think my opinion of my ability has been quite inflated for a while because I gave that test too much credit. It seems most people here don't do half bad at it and it doesn't have much relation to how well you do in real life, with whole faces that move quickly, and with the rest of the body and within a much broader social context that alters the interpretation. Still, I'm aware of instinctively understanding a lot of facial expressions in real life, the issue is how many fewer than most people, and I don't know. I know I'm less good at telling when people are faking them. When people try to hide that they're feeling awkward with a big grin, I don't notice that they're uncomfortable or see the signs even when they're pointed out to me, I just trust the grin.

I think it is possible that we have our own non-verbal language, which most other people do not recognise, rather than just a lack of the more common version. Obviously to people who can only see 'their' version, it might make sense to assume we are lacking, but I really do think we are just different, and for most of us it is the isolation from others which stops our natural communication abilities developing properly.

Sometimes I think that the 'social signals', which we are supposed to be so defective at, are not very natural to most people, and are being completely over-hyped. If they were natural, then there would not need to be books, TV programs, web articles etc explaining them. After all, this information was never aimed at just people on the spectrum - it was for general consumption. If it is so natural to everyone but us, then why do they need to learn it?

I think I may have a rich non-verbal communication - I just don't meet people who use the same method. Some people have said that I can be read like a book, but since most people completely misunderstand me, what they think they see doesn't reflect me at all.

I agree that it is possible to see a lot when watching other people, but as far as I can tell, mostly they seem unaware of what they reveal. Because of this I thought I could read body language, but it is now clear that I just don't see social language, so I think perhaps we look at a deeper level, and miss the superficial. Or another way of describing it - we might see what they don't want to be seen, rather than what they do, but not actually realise this is what is happening.


This seems to refer to all physical aspects of communication. I think the key factor is 'marked impairment'. If you don't communicate the same way as everyone else, and it causes problems, whether because you can't interpret them, or they can't interpret you, then that is a marked impairment in social communication.


Perhaps this one refers to the context and content. But 1 & 3 are linked, because if you don't interpret expressions etc, then it's difficult to respond appropriately. But this would also cover talking too much, not talking enough, laughing at the wrong time, being too blunt, not chit-chatting.

I think this is true for me as well, to the extent that at times I can only 'see' the person underneath, and not the portrayed version. And some people are quite unpleasant underneath. I find people much more difficult to be around now, than I did when younger - because there is more facade, and people are less congruent with themselves, so there is a constant duality about trying to interact with them.

But I wasn't aware that the way I perceive others was unusual, and I would often say things such as "Why do you say X and pretend you mean it, when it's clear to me that you don't." I guess it caused problems, and it took me a long time to realise that most people are completely oblivious to their 'unconscious' selves, and really do believe they are what is in their consciousness. I think that's what makes people seem shallow.


I agree with you, it's the intentional social signals that are being referred to, and I also think that most people would be unaware of any other kind.


I wonder if it is more to do with being hyper-sensory, rather than hypo-sensory. Perhaps females tend to being more sensory, so there might be some gender-bias, but in view of the blurred gender-boundaries it seems unlikely that any spectrum-trait would apply exclusively to only one gender.

A hard question.

Can I read "body language?" I say, "yes."

However, I do get inconsistent results. I certainly can note body language better as an observer of someone else's interaction than one I'm directly involved in, so I suppose I'm paying more focused attention to it when I'm not engaged in conversation.

Likewise, sometimes in conversation I get "vibes" which is like my subconscious screaming for me to pay attention to something. In such situations I usually know what the vibe is telling me but I'm uncertain if I should trust it as I've had a history of reacting poorly on short notice to new information.

Hey Quaker--I read the Donna Williams blog. Very interesting! I'm 27, w/ AS, and am also a therapist for kids on the spectrum (which Is how I even found out about autism in the first place)--I think my brother and dad are both on the spectrum, and I'd def. consider my mom at least an autistic cousin, as they say. I'm very right brained--I'm an art major--and I read people EXCEEDINGLY well, although, I have ALWAYS struggled w/ not understanding how others don't see things the same way as me (not nec. on EVERYTHING, but on many issues fairy frequently)...I'd never known what theory of mind was until recent really. I kind of bounce between two states of being/mind---sometimes I feel more confident and relaxed and my mind clear-then I know well how to react to others, etc. Other times I feel anxiety ridden and desperate to hide in a bathroom just to be alone--during those states of mind, I DON'T know how to react, even to simple things, so I fake my way through it--sometimes I KNOW but don't have the energy to fake it well! I feel consumed by awkwardness. It's like I can be two diff. people. Pain in the butt.

I am REALLY REALLY good at it. Never fails. Ever.

I am not naturally good at reading body language. I didn't even know it was possible to figure out what people's emotions were nonverbally (besides simple things like happy=smiling) until I was maybe 10. I've gotten better at it, but it's mostly based on context and logic. That's why I can read movie characters much better than real people. The problem is, it's a very difficult skill to learn because most of the time I can't know if I interpreted someone's nonverbal signals correctly. If I don't know how accurate my guesses are, I can't improve them.

I can relate.

Actually I think there's two types of body language, intentional and emotional. Emotional body language is more subconscious and emotion driven while intentional body language involves mannerisms and gestures that are learned and imitated, much like a child learns to speak. The intentional part of body language would also vary from one culture to another while the emotional part is universal to all human beings.

My theory is that people who are more emotional themselves are better able to pick up on subtle subconscious emotional signals, regardless of whether they are autistic or not. Autistic people may fail to pick up on the intentional body language because we aren't as subconsciously inclined to imitate the mannerisms of others. This might be what you perceive as "superficial", NT mannerisms that we don't share. We have to consciously tell ourselves to occasionally look a person in the eye and nod to acknowledge that we understood what they said. We're not as subconsciously inclined to do these things to do these things as an NT would be.

This isn't the same as failing to pick up on the mood someone is in. To me this is very easy, yet I'm not even sure exactly how I do it. I just know. I probably rely more on tone of voice and overall body movements / postures than facial expressions though.