Aspergers and the appearance of you compared to family

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They have beady little eyes and flopping heads so full of lies.

Last edited by Dalebert on 09 Sep 2006, 10:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

Some of my physical features aren't typical Aspie-ish - I'm 6'1 and I weigh 102 kilos, and I've been told I look 'well built.' I also tend to tan easily but I lose it in the winter.

I've been told countless times I look like my dad, but I don't resemble anyone else in my family. My sisters are both under 5'6 in height, but I can't really compare them with myself due to the difference in gender.

It's a bit difficult to compare as i don't know anyone with AS.
If you looked different from your family, and noone recognizes you as family of them you would wonder too.
Maybe it was the milkman

my brother is only halfly related to me and is much bigger than i am, he prolly weighs 100+ pounds more than i do. my sisters that are related to me are about just as skinny as i am

I think it would be very difficult to find physical characteristics that are typical on the spectrum. All we can hope to discover is an enormous range of variation. It is not a physical disorder and the symptoms don't necessarily inhibit or alter physical development.

I'm sure this has been looked at by NT researchers and if there were some easily identifiable physical similarities between aspies, I think we would already know. Especially with a few HFA Drs taking a look also.
You can't look at a persons physique and diagnose schizophrenia, paranoia, depression or any other neuro-difficulty, either.

Everybody says my brother and I look like my father, but I don't believe so at all. Considering my brother and I don't look alike either, I just don't get that. I think I resemble some of my uncles on my mother's side a little. My son looks exactly like me, though.

I think that Aspie guys all look a lot a like. If you go to the post of eligible men a lot of those photos start looking alike. The same blank stare and expressionless or lost face. Course I have that same look most of the time too.

If that's what Canadians look like then y'all are a scary looking bunch!

Bart - i'm almost exactly like you - i'm 5'11" (approx 1.80m) and about 10 stone (60something kilos), while my brother who is 7 years younger than me at 17 is about 6'4" or 6'5" (about 1.95m) and *much* bigger built than me... wouldn't know what to guess his weight as but maybe 14 stone/85kg at a guess?

My mum is about 5'9" and about as skinny as me, whereas my dad is the same height as her but closer to my brother's weight... IMO they both have sub-clinical Aspie traits, but i think i have inherited more mental traits from my father and more physical traits from my mother, as most of the men on my mum's side of the family were my build (most of them died before the age of 50 as well... )

my uncle who was the same shape as me married my aunt who is about 5ft nothing (1.5m) and had 2 daughters who looked as you might expect (slim and medium height) but then had a son who is about 6'2", about 16 stone and a semi-professional rugby player...

I do think AS is linked to unusually thin build (both very gracile skeleton and fast metabolism meaning little fatty tissue), from observation tho... i don't think this is a solid enough link to be diagnostic, as i have met 1 or 2 fat aspies as well, but one thing i have nearly always noticed on people with AS or AS-like traits is an unusually long/thin, angular face...

IMO the possible linkage of AS and specific physical traits needs investigating... it could help prove AS is a genuine genetic difference, not a psychosocially produced "mental illness"...

Well, I am rather Jolly for my Height.

There's an estimated 40% of autistic people who have what are considered "genetic syndromes" associated with being autistic. Some of those genetic syndromes -- such as Marfan's, Down's, Noonan's, Fragile X, etc -- alter external appearance. They're generally called Multiple Congenital Anomaly/Mental Retardation Syndromes but in some cases the neurological aspect is really often autism rather than anything else, and in some cases they only cause intellectual disabilities some of the time.

Sue Rubin (diagnosed with autism, non-speaking) and Kate Noelle Downey (diagnosed with AS) are both authors with Noonan's syndrome, for instance. That causes a particular appearance.

Some of the syndromes (and variants of them) look more obvious than others, too, so you can't always tell someone is unusual-looking until you line them up with a bunch of other people with the syndrome and they all look like family.



Well... people with intellectual disabilities also look pretty diverse, but at the same time, many of them have "genetic syndromes" that cause them to appear certain ways. There are just a whole lot of such syndromes (hundreds to thousands) and then plenty of people who don't have any of those syndromes as well. Just as with autism, really.

I doubt that most autistic people look any different than usual or that swapping appearance-traits on a message board will amount to much, but this does happen a fair amount more than it's noticed.

If I smile for pictures, I generally look like I'm about to tear someone's throat out. I just can't do the fakey "picture smile" and it not look psychotic. About the only way you can get me to smile for pictures and it look halfway decent is if it's a genuine smile... like if I'm thinking of a practical joke or something.

Heh. I have a small head. Most hats don't fit me. It is squarish, though. As for the thin build thing, I'm built solidly, not skinnily.

I can't smile for pictures without either looking like I'm about to go for the photographer's throat or looking like I'm high either. I'm just not good at it.

How I differ from my familiy...hmm. I'm exactly the same height as my mother and younger sister, although I have longer legs and a shorter torso than either of them. Otherwise, my build is pretty similar to theirs. I do have a much rounder face than anyone on either side of my family, as well as a much smaller nose.

I'm 178 cm, my father is 175 cm, my mother is 159 cm and my brother is 170 cm. The maximum height for a male is=(fathers height+mothers height)/2+10 (cm). My father used to be a little taller when he was younger, so I'm on my maximum height. My father is undiagnosed aspie, mother and brother are NT's. I'm physically weaker (muscle strength, that is), than my NT brother and used to be weaker than my aspie father, until he was about 55 and I was about 30.

I look like my father, due to being a male, but my nose, ears, teeth and fingers are much more like my mom's. Ï look pretty NT, although "intellectual" (not "nerdy" or "geeky" though), at least that's what most people tell my, aware or unaware of my aspieness.

The weird thing about me is that I have nmo featrures of either of my psrents except my mother's height (but not build) my mothere's eyes, and my dad's chin.

My Mum told me that I look more like HER mother (who died when I was 7 months old.)

JulieArticuno