Heel Walking

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Is heel walking part of autism? I know toe walking is but I don’t recall hearing anything about AS kids walking on their heels.

When I was a little girl I use to walk on my heels all the time or the inside of my feet this practice continued until I was about eight years old.

To this day I occasionally heel walk for the sensation it brings. Although, I never walked on my toes except for in ballet class.

I apparently walked on my toes as a child. I have no recollection of this, but my Mom told me about it recently.

Now that my son walks on his toes... his OT wants me to put a weighted vest on him to get him to stop.
I have not consented to the treatment. I, instead plan to enroll him in ballet or gymnastics to give him an outlet where it's safe to walk on his toes and also help to improve his co-ordination.

EDIT: I should add that my son is a pre-schooler. If it starts to affect his functioning, I'll look into therapies for his toe-walking, but right now it's not affecting the quality of his life.

I walked on my toes as a child AND as an adult.

Toe-walking in kids is normal up until the age of 4 or so. If the kid is 4 or 5 and hasn't stopped, that's when it's cause for closer investigation.

To BeautyWithin, I wouldn't try to "treat" his toe-walking. Seriously, what's wrong with walking on your toes? No doctor has ever been able to prove to me that there's anything wrong with walking on my toes other than "other kids make fun of you for it." I'm 27 and a toe-walker with no ill-effects from it.

I agree with you 100%
That's why I didn't let the OT do anything about his toe-walking now.
Only if it becomes a problem for him would I let them treat it. I hate that they try to 'fix' everything instead of accepting him for who he is.

I have a very light step, strange for someone my size. I can walk up and down stairs without people (or even our dogs) hearing me coming. I have never noticed HOW I walk though, heels or toes, etc..... something to check out about myself I guess.

If you walked on your toes, you'd know it because EVERYONE would point it out your entire life long and call you crap like "twinkle toes" all the time. (Can you tell I'm annoyed by 27 years of answering "why do you walk on your toes?")

I never heelwalked. I could never run worth a damn, because I listened to the PT instructors at my school in the mistaken belief that they knew WTF they were talking about when they told me to run heel-and-toe. So I'd pound down the track jarring myself from head to foot, and come in five seconds behind the next slowest runner at 100 yards.

Then when I was about 26, I discovered that what worked for me was to run on my toes. And suddenly I could run like the wind. I left everyone else I knew as though they were standing still. And it didn't feel awkward and ponderous, it felt GOOD. I could feel the wind of my own passage. It felt almost like flying.

I learned to run almost silently, if I wasn't running all-out. When I was in hospital once after a breakdown (medical malpractive, overdose, general Very Bad Scene) I didn't sleep for about three days. I just couldn't sleep, I was too ... wired, for lack of a better word. So I'd wait until everyone else was asleep, and then get out of bed and go silently running laps around the quad.

In theory, running wasn't allowed in the building. But I just gave the night intern a quiet wave as I went past the desk the first time, and he looked at me and I guess decided I was OK, and just left me to it.

The third night, one of the other patients tried to join in. But he was heavy-footed, and couldn't shut up and just be, he had to try to hold a conversation. The second lap after he joined, the night intern told us we couldn't disturb the other patients and would have to go back to our rooms.

There wasn't a fourth night, because after three nights unable to sleep, the sleep dep was really starting to get to me, and they gave me some sleeping meds.

Never thought about...just something I have always done. This is going to sound weird but I feel comfortable to mention it here at WP; when I run I pretend I am a horse so I guess the toes are my hooves. I can gallop very fast on the greenbelt trails close to my home (I mean barn )!

Last edited by mariiha on 14 Feb 2007, 11:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I accidentally selected the wrong answer , I walked on my toes as a child, now I do both.

I used to have to walk on my heels as part of physio, to stop me walking on my toes, apparently.

I remember I used to toe-walk when I was six, at least. A habit which reappeared at moments, although not to any great extent.

At the same time, the local doctor in our outback town wanted me to get one of those tendon-cutting operations. (My hammies are still too tight) But then some kiddie specialists said no don't do that.

...And my mum says that he was the one who identified my "autistic traits" -- no dx of Aspergers in the mid 80s.

That's actually not a bad idea. (For posture, ballet is better than gymnastics, but gym is possibly better for self-esteem.)

I imagine that putting a weighted vest on a pre-schooler would cause more harm than good, but I know nothing about the particulars.

I walk on my toes even now, but not all the time I like the feel of it. If I'm barefoot, I usually toe-walk, or if I'm indoors, or generally moving slowly. If I'm out walking with the intention of getting somewhere fast, I do it properly heel-to-toe. Toe-walking never hurt me. The upside is that my arches are as strong as steel!

I used to do the "galloping" as well for running, interestingly enough. Weaned myself out of it though after a couple of years being tormented by peers and family.

I have no idea if I walked on my toes or heels as a child. Even if I did, my parents aren't likely to tell me and I'm not likely to ask. What I do remember is, I had shins that were slightly turned inwards (maybe as a result of having had cerebral palsy), and when I stood still I tended to turn one or both feet inward too. It wasn't very noticeable, I think, but my mother had an obsession about it and kept telling me to "mind my feet" or "mind the way I walk" or "not to twist my feet", sometimes every five minutes or so. Later she developed a signal to remind me about it without talking - she'd squeeze my hand instead, sometimes quite painfully, or say something like "chik-chik". It could be frustrating.

If I'm wearing boots (of the cowboy variety ) or any other shoe with a hard heel like that I'll walk on my heels. I did it when I was little a lot. Sometimes I did it because I cannot be on my feet continously for extended periods of time or my feet hurt REALLY bad, they have always been that way. I used to dread those little pagents we had to put on in elementary school because it meant standing on hard risors for what seamed like an eternity. It was sheer torture for me. I don't know if other Aspies have that problem or if it's just my screwed up feet but anyway that's my heel-walking experience for ya.

Doctors throughout my childhood and early teens were always scratching their heads over my toe-walking and always wanted to cut my tendons too. I live in a big city, so it's not necessarily "outback town" doctors who don't know crap about toe-walking. I'm so, so glad that my grandmother never went through with the surgery.

I have done both but I am mostly (and still) a toe-walker. Interestingly enough, no one has ever seemed to notice. I mostly do it at home now, but occasionally when I am out and about. I quite enjoy it and I am thankful no one has ever tried to treat it away.

toes