Does smiling as a child rule out ASD?

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I identify with many characteristics that might describe "mild" Aspergers; Chronic inability to make or maintain friendships. I don't read between the lines or read people in general - so I have generally gravitated to "rude" people to take the guess work out of things. I've often been told that I seem angry, bored, or disinterested when I'm not (or my favorite, that I have an "Outputting Affect". Obviously a lot more to my suspicions, but I don't want to write a book about my life. I took the AQ, got 37, EQ-60: 13/80, FQ: 33, SQ: 81 (thought that one would be higher, but I'm kind of a slob and I don't like managing my finances).

When talking to my mother, however, she reports that I seemed to smile quite easily up until about middle school. As a very young child I was apparently anything but shy and would talk to strangers randomly. Around middle school was when I was really cognizant of how much I didn't fit in and wasn't accepted. I'm in my late 30's now, and that feeling really hasn't changed much. I still feel like I'm an anthropologist trying to figure out the world, and the manuals really aren't very good (I've read books on conversation and body language, which have helped to some degree). Rather frustrating is that I guess I fake it well enough and most therapists don't believe that I have as much difficulty as I do.

My question is whether it is possible that I have an ASD, given that I apparently lacked the classic flat affect at a young age? If not that, what are some alternative possibilities?

ASD is such a varied disorder than whenever you try to characterize something as everyone having it, someone here will point out an exception.

If you can't then I am not autistic either.

I was a cheerful, talkative child ever since I were a little baby (although there are some photos of me having "flat affect" too, it was one or another: intense smiling, intense crying or flat affect, no in-between). And it still didn't change, although there were some social anxiety and depressive periods when I shut myself in and wouldn't show anything on my face for prolonged periods of time. I also get the flat affect during shutdowns.

But despite smiling and being social I wouldn't get friends and I were an easy target for bullies, because I were just too naive and my reactions were too intense. "Autistic" doesn't equal "shy" but "socially awkward".

Smiling might defeat the clinical expectation of "nonverbal communication," but, I suspect that if other verbal deficits exist, smiling wouldn't change much.

While smiling constantly might be considered non-verbal communication, you need to be able to communicate interactively with normal people to be considered normal.

I smiled a lot as a baby and a child. I was usually smiling in photos, and if a photo was took of me without me knowing, I still had expression on my face.

I think I've learned smile a lot when around people - it's part of how I've learned fake social skills. I might not have the slightest hope of carrying on a conversion, but at least I'm smiling while failing.


While I basically only have acquaintances, not friends, I think people do generally like my quirks, and I attribute a significant part of that to smiling a lot.

Did I do it as a child? I'm not sure, but I can't recall when I started smiling, so one would assume I probably did.

I remember now there was another kid in school who's nickname was Smiley.

Shyness and introversion are not autistic traits but can often be the result of repeated social failures. It is not that you were outgoing and smiled that matters but did you smile and socialize atypically/when you were not expected to?

So many of these kinds of threads...

ASD is usually not ruled out by a single trait. The DSM-5 says nothing about "if you are xyz you cannot have ASD".

https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html

No smiling would not rule out an ASD. It baffles me that these kind of questions still exist.

Thank you everyone, for your responses. I apologize for the repeat of a topic; I guess my use of google prior to posting wasn't exhaustive enough because I didn't realize that this had been addressed multiple times before.

I doubt that I will pursue formal diagnosis; I've managed to do well enough professionally without accommodation. In some ways I suppose it doesn't matter if I'm on the spectrum or not--trying to be normal/neurotypical has been very detrimental (severe depression), and whatever strategies that are helpful to aspies would probably be helpful to me. On the other hand I'd rather be autistic than just Wierd NOS.

A resounding NO to this query. We are human, humans smile, therefore Autistic kids can and will too.