physical deformity in aspergers?

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The two outward signs that I'm different, as told by people after they got to know me, are fleeting, intermittent eye contact and unchanging facial features despite changing emotions.

I think there is an "autistic look," a certain set of facial features, I'm not sure how to describe it. I only know one other aspie in person and I think he has that look. I don't think I have that look, but I don't know. I've been told I look stoned, and people often think I look angry or sad when I'm just standing there with what I think is a blank look.

Yer, you have a point there - I probably have quite a standard look - but that's the way we hold our faces. It's still not nothing physically different.

I happen to notice a lot of people with Aspergers have longer faces (including me) but not all but I have seen a lot of people who post their pictures seem to have long faces. I come from an area that has a large Eastern European Slavic type people who seem to have rounder faces. I have British, Dutch, German, and maybe some Native American ancestory who are races that have longer faces so it might be my ancestory. I do not know maybe we are blaming our racial features on our autism. Some of the autistics I have met here have a lot of thesame ancestory as me and have longer faces.

Pffff. Autistic people don't have the same face at all. It's the facial EXPRESSION: blank when at rest.

It is interesting to me that most people say there is not a "look" to people on the spectrum. I work with children on the spectrum and know many others (including myself) and can recognize a high percentage of my spectrum kids by look alone. Some even look related (like siblings) when they are not at all. It is not to say we all look the same, but there is something different about the features, postures and gait that are easily noticeable. I do believe that the mannerisms and facial expressions play a big part though, but it seems like more than that. My cousin has "that look". A neighbor I had once had "that look" and he looked nothing like his NT siblings. I can notice it in women I meet and find out they have Autistic children. Of course, I trained in ASD, and it is very easy for me to recognize.

the "look" is not so much a static thing but a dynamic, and it is the speed and complexity of the dynamic which tends to be awry in at least some aspie countenances. i have been told i have a mask-like face, and a limited palette of eerie facial expressions, often with an alarmingly sudden change from expression to expression, for reasons not clear to observers or even myself much of the time. i have also been told that i belong in the "uncanny valley" in terms of my total physical presense, IOW my posture, movements, expressions and sounds- i am slightly "off" - just enough to unnerve people in general. no matter, i still love me. it's me, myself and i, up against the world.

I think it's interesting that we like to look for patterns even in this. I do the same thing, but for me I look at someone and think, "Hmm... his nose is similar to mine. I wonder if he has some of the same blood in him." I am pretty sure that any "look" has to do with facial expressions, body language, etc., not physical traits.

For example, apparently my face is pretty expressionless. Someone I met online once looked at my picture and said it was my "srs face" but it's just my normal face.

I've never believed in the uncanny valley as I've never been able to see what people are talking about. None of the examples looked creepy or unnerving to me.

I think maybe I have an idea why, now.

do tell, por favor - "enquiring minds want to know."

Oops - I meant Asperger's, maybe. I mean, it's not that no face ever looks creepy to me but when they do it's pretty exaggerated, never something that is as subtle as the uncanny valley is supposed to be. I also scored low on the "reading the eyes" test, although not excessively so.

is the "uncanny valley" a subtle thing in the eyes of many NTs, or only in the eyes of many AS folk? just wondering...

I have no idea.

Well, the first time I heard of it was in reference to Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. To me, the characters looked fine, but other people informed me their faces were totally creepy and they had dead eyes. To me, it seemed like it had to be subtle if it existed at all (and I honestly didn't believe it existed. I'm still not sure I believe it).

Its more of an NT thing than anything. Expressionless faces do tend to fall into it according to NTs. WTF do they know anyways, they are to mentally screwed to even survive a day without human contact. Too bad I lost the link to that NT page.

I think it is the facial expresion... apparently, I am always told I have a "desire" or "sex" look on my face... I have noticed the same in the Aspie I am dating....

The lack of expression, as if we are hiding some "desire"...... lol....

This page? http://isnt.autistics.org/