Toe walking in autism, and are there later foot issues?

Post Reply New Topic

I remember being around age 10 and seeing my Mom toe walk in the morning. Even at the time, I understood it as part of waking up on a cold morning, and wanting less contact with a world whose sensations can at times be overwhelming.

Years later, I realize my Mom is on the autism spectrum, and so am I.

My next question is— How common is it for a person on the spectrum to toe walk often enough to later cause foot or ankle issues?

Last edited by AardvarkGoodSwimmer on 24 Mar 2021, 12:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have always had problems with plantar fasciitis, and walking on the balls of my feet relieves most of the pain.  Unfortunately, this triggers other people into believing that I am sneaking around.

I remember my little sister toe walking. She has always had a weird gait.

Is she autistic? Good question. We are estranged. In my unofficial opinion, my father and all of my sibs and my two children are either autistic or have BAP.

I have toe walked my entire life. I'm only 20 and so far I don't think it has messed up my feet that much, but they are kind of "flat" and I do get aching pain in them sometimes. I've tried to train myself to walk properly, which has helped a bit.

I have heard about this toe walking issue with us in the spectrum, but nobody has explained why many of us in the spectrum do this? I would be very grateful if someone here could enlighten me.

Many thanks,

Chris.

Bottom of the foot, right?

But sometimes also results in ankle tightness in the morning, has that been your experience?

I’m somewhat distant from my younger sister, too. Although we get along somewhat better now that we’re both in mid- to late-50s.

When I was in my late teens and early 20s, and very visibly struggling with OCD, I think I was a living, breathing example of how she didn’t want her life to turn out.

I think toe walking is fine as one skill among many, or perhaps more realistically among several.

And at other times, shoes with good arch support without over-doing it and/or inserts?

I think we sometimes do it to reduce how much sensory overload we get, such as a cold floor in the morning.

As an analogy, watch an NT “normal” person get into a cold pool. They are sometimes standing up on their toes to limit how much of their body is in the cold pool!

No such thing as “normal” anyway and how boring a place the world if there were!

Yep.Nope.

I think I stopped around time to go to school, which is when I had to walk more regularly (had to either walk long distances or ride the public transport), though I was favored placing weight on the toes, probably until college when I gained enough weight that I had to use the ball of my feet more.

I have ankle and foot issues that I believe are not linked to toewalking in any way. I did stop relatively young.

I have high arches which cause their own pain. I used to need custom inserts when I was working.

I've had plantar fasciitis as well.

I don't really toe walk but I love standing on tiptoes to reach things, and I'm known to do pirouettes or ballerina moves when I'm randomly walking down the street.

I forgot to add that life-long toe walking shortened my Achilles tendons, so I had to do stretches and exercises to lessen that. Now I can actually put my feet flat on the ground, which I couldn't do before without pain.

The toe walking is actually kind of useful, since I walk very quietly from it. I scare people on accident all the time because they don't hear me enter the room. lol

Doing the aforementioned stretches + exercises and reminding myself to walk on my feet has so far been helpful for the pain. I also walk properly around half the time now, which is a plus. I do need to get new shoes with better arch support like you mentioned though, mine have very flat soles.

I used to walk on my toes when I wasn't wearing shoes. Generally, in my own apartment. Then I had a bout of plantar fasciitis. Maybe unrelated, but I no longer walk on my toes.

I had plantar fasciitis in my left foot for a few months. Couldn't get inserts that work for me. It kind of went away on its own but the X-ray showed I have a spur growing, which at that size supposedly isn't the source of the pain.

Thanks AGS