Aspie traits that aren't diagnostic criteria

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how do you define your inner voice, as a "feeling" or as a collective of common sense?

i am Norwegian, but i did not bother with the profile details until just recently and i figured i might aswel flag my nationality as it seems there are a few of us here.

What to add? let me think....sorry if any of these are repeats:

How about the tendency to get lost? This is me; I never knew it was an AS trait, until I read Liane Holiday Willie´s book, where she mentioned it too. I can walk into a very small, 1 roomed store, come out a different entrance, and walk in totally the wrong direction from where I want to go. Like Liane, after years of training, I have to focus and concentrate on landmarks, and my surroundings, to know where I´m going.

Rigid thinking. (After losing my car in the parking lot- another experience that Liane wrote about too- I would often doggedly keep sticking my key into the wrong car, wondering why the hell was it not working?)

Difficulty with spontaneity. (I am a choreographer by profession, but prefer doing my own thing, get nervous if I´m working "for" somebody. If they ask me to choreograph something "on call" , before I´ve had time to hear the music or prepare something, forget it!)

Repetitive activities. (Or is this part of the diagnostic criteria? I forget...)

Difficulty with lying...(I have this one big time...)

The tendency to analyze, "take things apart" (literally or figuratively), a preference for logical thinking

The tendency to follow one´s own inner truth or logic, rather than being easily influenced by others

A different emotional makeup; i.e., reacting "differently" to certain stimuli than others might; for some people, delayed emotions, or maybe the ability to "feel" the emotion only when something is understood rationally first

Difficulty expressing thoughts and ideas with words

Feeling uncomfortable in emotionally intense situations (Man, I really have that one too....)

I agree with sleep problems and intestinal problems

I agree with toe walking (I did that, but then I became a ballet dancer, so now it´s "normal" for me); any kind of idiosyncratic walk, but isn´t that part of the diagnostic criteria already???

Well...I know there are more, let me think on it.

Does anyone have anything else to add?

same here. unfortunately I often fail to recognise sarcasm in others (especially when directed at me) even though I use it extensively myself.

I forgot to add:

Executive dysfunction. Many people are tested for this when they go to specialised autism clinics (executive dysfunction is common in Asperger's, and it's one of the many "disabling" aspects of the disorder. People with dementia, schizophrenia, ADHD, and other brain disorders can have such too).

I've often thought the same, but I have a theory that it may only have been so because interaction between young children - and what is expected of children - is considerably more straightforward than that between adults. There's an old saying that, 'Fools and children tell the truth', and it's true in that children are much more inclined to say what they mean, and to express what they want to get over and find out what they need to know in the quickest and most effective way possible. A child who wants to find out a piece of information about someone won't try and work up to the topic gradually, or find some indirect method of eliciting it; they'll just walk up and ask. A child who doesn't like something will say they don't like it, not pretend it's okay and then complain about it later. A child who's not happy about something another child did will come right out and say, "You broke my favorite toy! I don't want to play with you again!" not maintain a false, icy civility to the other child's face, never actually telling them what it is that they're upset about, and then insult them behind their back. Children don't expect people to read between the lines. And likewise, an adult won't expect a young child to be able to 'understand' social subtleties, and will also therefore be prepared to be direct with them. It's only as we grow older that other people will no longer be direct and no longer explain things, and expect us to 'just know', which is where we begin to run into serious difficulties.

Has impetuous childlike behavior by adults been listed yet?

I am 33 I act like a kid....in really silly ways..

this was a brilliant though, i have not looked at it like that before, i mean i have been discovering that my interaction with people has become more and more difficult and i have now reached a point at 25 where i am having a hard time with people, so for me its been getting worse and worse over the years, it does scare me though...what will the future hold?

I think it´s a good theory too, and it may be the case for some people. In my case, however, it´s definitely gotten better. I think a lot of it is that I have found a social "niche", finally, based mostly on the expertise of my special interest subject (and job). I´m lucky, in that people of my job are allowed- even expected- to be "quirky". I have been thinking, however, about the fact that it´s awfully hard for me to relate to other people, outside of my field. So, that may be a big part of it.

I have the feeling that my sensory issues are getting worse with age, as well as my desire for control. When I was younger, I at least tried certain social situations, or going out more; I think I was more spontaneous, or open to things somehow. Now, I guess I figure I know it´s not going to work anyway....and I know what I like and what makes me comfortable- more than I knew when I was younger- so, I guess I just stick with those things more.

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i've got to say this is me also. except that i am 46. i am really good wtih words and verbal stuff - i have that little professoress stuff. BUT i also talk in funny voices and am very impetuous and childlike. my adult siblings say i am a perennial kid.

i like it.

I can't update the list. Apparantly there's a time limit.

That list of criteria seems to define me perfectly except for this one:

- Takes everything literally/doesn't "get" sarcasm

I used to be this way when I was younger which led to many embarrassments because of my guillibility (ie. thanking people for patronizing compliments), so now I tend to analyze just about everything that is said to me before responding to it. It seems it worked a little too well and now I'm starting to develop sarcastic tendences myself. So now when I'm faced with a teasing comment or a joke, I'll respond with, "Yeah, sure!" or the opposite of what I mean in a high pitched voice folled by a laugh. It seems awkward to me, and it usually results in the other person laughing more, but at least it seems more sincere than responding coldly or outright ignoring the person who went out of their way to tease me.

Irony (as seen in the last sentence of the above paragraph) and symbolism are different topics for me, and I actually enjoy analyzing literature for both of these, and my skills in finding these seem to be improving with my AP literature class.

Lying has always been a problem for me - when I try it I always end up laughing my butt off or telling the truth instead because of the other person's intimidating nature.

I haven't been professionally diagnosed, so I wouldn't recommend taking these traits as concrete Aspie traits, but here are some odd quirks I have:

~Hyperlexia (learning to read before age 2)
~Love for music
~Some talent in intuitive music, but trouble with counting and rhythm

I'm surprised now - I was never aware that there was an actual term for very early reading. I read when I was not much older than you, but I always assumed that most children are capable of the same and it was simply because my mother took the time to try to teach me. Is that not the case?

I do remember that when I was four, I was assessed at school as having a 'reading age' of nine, and how frustrating I found it listening to other kids read out loud and struggling with their words.

But you have a socially mature and consistent writing voice. Maybe your social skills have just migrated from one form of external skills (superficial charm) to another form of more internal skills (good personality maturity). So while you seem AS to me, you also seem to have a definitely solid charm in your writing voice (but without a lot of superficial rhetorical devices).

With limited "bandwidth" for sustaining a social mind, I think that the skills I acquire aren't "sticky". I.e. if I don't keep them up, they tend to dim and disappear eventually. So the social skills I acquire aren't persistent unless maintained with specific refresher or maintenance activity. I posted once here elsewhere that I forgot how to handwrite well and became actually disabled in my ability to write to the point that when I went back to college I didn't turn in a lot of homework and had trouble with anything I couldn't do on a computer that involved writing. Got marginally better over the course of a year and a half to the point where it wasn't noticeable. I now write like hell even though I had penmanship classes, etc, in private school (was a bad student in that, too, and the nuns thought I wasn't trying). So that particular fine sensorimotor skill was lost to me and is still kind of a struggle.

I'm wondering if the same neurological issues (procedural memory for sensorimotor activities?) that result in the original deficits also contribute to not being able to retain the skills well if you don't engage in them periodically.

Maybe that is a trait? "Social skills acquired aren't persistent unless specifically maintained with periodic activity".

Those traits are published often. However, I've read that there are plenty of Aspies who don't think in pictures (Auties tend to do that more than Aspies). Info on Aspies depending on intuition more than words is less circulated news. I think that's because age is a factor. When you get older, you can't trust words since so many people lie. That causes an Aspie to learn to trust his or her intuition AFTER gaining a general understanding of how the neurotypical mind works differently.

From what I've noticed, traits seem to be too loosely and too quickly thrown around which ends up creating more confusion in the long run. The problem with lists and categorizing is that they cannot incorporate all the other variables which cause Aspies to be so different from one another. There are infinite "it depends" being ignored.