Body Language

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Do you know or are you an aspie that is good at reading body language and facial expressions?

This is difficult for me to answer... I can usually infer what a person is thinking, but inevitably I get that very wrong at times. Nonetheless, I'd still answer "yes" to this question as it seems most Aspies have it worse off than I.

Unless they're obvious gestures like pointing or waving I usually don't get them very well. About the best I can do for facial expressions is tell if you look abnormal and ask if somethings wrong.

Most of the information I get from conversations comes from vocal modulations and inflections and such. Ive actually gotten rather good at telling how a person is feeling by the sound of their voice. Considering its also the most reliable way for me to tell people with similar features apart and recognize those who have altered their appearance I tend to rely on it heavily.

Of course lifes sense of cruel irony dictates that Ill probably go deaf though

I'm not completely 100% oblivious to body language and other nonverbal communication, but it's far from my strength.

You forgot a little. I'm in between. I can read some. I just have troubles with the non verbal ones.

I am fine at reading facial expressions if they are on smilies. But I mix them up on people because while a smiley obviously has an upturned mouth when grinning, some people don't and they look more like their baring their teeth, or in other words, angry.

I don't think I have any deficits in understanding changes in voice tones and stuff... that's why I don't have any troubles comprehending sarcasm.

Gestures are my worst nightmare, though... the only ones I understand are pointing, waving, shrugging shoulders and sighing (the latter two I learnt from books )

I really don't know how good I am. I don't think I would have thought there was a problem until recently when I started actually thinking about how my interactions go. So I can't vote 'cause I'm not sure. I never would have made a connection.

Gestures confuse me...I rarely use them. Really I pretty much never use them. And they are distracting to me if someone uses them. I usually can't read facial expressions because I rarely look at people but if I really try I can sometimes figure out what they mean.

nope... and I always flinch... even if I know people are kidding

I really don't know how to answer this. I don't know how well I read body language. I suppose I am ok at it if it's obvious. A lot of the time I don't look at the person, so I'm probably missing a lot of cues by not doing that. I wish there was some body language test out there that could tell me how well I do at reading body language. I kinda don't really have a clue.

I'm a bad body language reader

I am fairly bad at people body language. And I'm worse when it comes to vocal tones. Now, given a dog, I generally know what's safe and what isn't.

I can be a good reader of body language but it doesn't seem to be a natural, instinctive thing for me. I mean I must concentrate on other people's gestures, look closely at them. If I don't do it, I can miss that somebody's body language is far from the "normal" one, that a person is just communicating something through his/her body language. Immediate understanding of body language and facial gestures is not instinctive in my case, especially when they are subtle and seemingly they are not changed at all. I remember a situation when a friend of mine had just communicated something important to another girl and that second girl's face expression suddenly changed for a moment. Later I even asked that first girl whether she had noticed that our pal's face seemed to be frozen for a short moment and her eyes were widened. I was very proud of myself that I was able to see this small change.

Oxymoron?

I'm pretty blind to NT body language, but I seem to be able to read the body language and facial expressions of people on the spectrum (including adhd) very well.

I´m like that. I can´t read NT body language, period. Nothing comes across. As for AS body language, I think I have some grasp of it. When my son and I (we are ´suspect´ but not diagnosed yet) are together, we are more relaxed. Maybe it´s because we don´t try to look at each other all the time. I know how he feels without looking at him very much. The opportunities are few and far between. Weeks ago, the rest of the family was gone we went for a walk and ended up sitting on a jetty. It was one of the few times I didn´t have the feeling of wanting to be somewhere else, that feeling of urgency and wasting my time. I got to do that more often.