Do autistic adults tend to look younger than neurotypicals?

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I've been thinking about this recently, and it makes sense. Although there probably aren't any physical differences between autistic people and neurotypicals, I've noticed that many pictures of people who have autism look younger than neurotypicals of the same age. They tend to lack the prominent "crow's feet" wrinkles near their eyes and don't have deep nasolabial folds and have less facial wrinkles in general, which contributes to a younger appearance. Since autistic people make fewer facial expressions, the face does not experience the same amount of stretching that a neurotypical face does. If anyone knows of any studies done on this, please post them. It would be interesting.

I look older then I am… I also spent some time homeless and not eating healthy; that really aged me.

maybe looking younger has to do with not using your facial muscles as much as other people

It would be great if this were true, as there aren't that many benefits to Autism. People do tell me I look younger than I am really am, but not sure if that is true of most Aspies or not.

I've seen this topic come up from time to time, but I don't know how true it is. I pretty much looked my age until my teen years, then I started to look young for my age, and look much younger today than I "should" at 39.

i think maybe they dont bother too much with stuff that ages them e.g make up or more mature hairstyles?

^ well, that seems true for me. I've never worn make up and I have the same hair style as I've had the last 20 years, which is only somewhat different from the one I've had since I was around 10-12. Not sure how if it is seen as immature though. Nor do I really care, as I like it.

I get treated like a little kid by my peers at school. Apparently this is why.

I am 25 and look 35 though. However people say I am very handsome even by standards of 35yo. However while supposedly autists are more pretty, I have mostly met those who look like geeks or like cavemen. NTs in my eyes often either look extremely ordinary or primitive.

I'm 20 years old (about to be 21 at the end of this month), and people think I'm around 18 years old when I ask them, so I guess it's not that big of a difference for me. Strangely, a huge number of older women who are 60 years old and older comment on how handsome I look, whereas nobody even close to my age comments on my looks. I don't know what to make of that.

I look younger than I actually am.

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Ya, I'm weird like that...

I looked very young as a teenager; my high school graduation picture makes me look like a middle-school graduate.

However, around the time I turned 19, I started looking my age, for some reason. I was only "carded" once in my life when I wanted a drink. At the time, the legal drinking age was 18 (it's 21 now).

I'm 55. If I didn't have gray hair, I would look about 10-15 years younger than my present age. With gray hair, I look somewhat younger than my age.

Llamas tend to look younger than goats.

If not my face: it's my body language, my voice, the way I word things, my literal thinking...

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