Adults with ASC - Walking

Would you be embarrassed if you saw a video of yourself running though!  

IntenseWorld said:

...just to illustrate my point, I have just returned from going out...where I managed to walk into a lamp post!

Oh no!! I just saw this thread and thought what a genius thing to bring up! I have loose ligaments in my hips and so my legs rotate inwards slightly - my toes point inwars when i walk. But this should be that severe. I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing with my legs! However I can run very fast with no problems.

I can't say I've noticed the problems Intenses World mentions in the first post of this thread. I have, however, discovered something quite odd about how I walk - my right foot, I walk on my heel and on my left foot, I walk on the front of my foot. If I run, I run on the front of both feet.

And walking into lamposts - never done that. I do walk into things like walls though.

Can't walk in high heels. My balance is affected and walking in heels would just make it worse.

NAS11521 said:

BTW, what about shoes?  I always wanted to wear gorgeous high-heeled shoes but for me they were a disaster.

I don't think high-heeled shoes would suit me... :P

Scorpion0x17 said:

I heard once that we, on the spectrum, have a quite distinctive gait (style of walking).

Pretty sure I've even heard it said that someone who knows what to look for can spot the Autistics in a crowd enitrely from the way they walk and without knowing anything else about them.

I don't know how true that really is though.

This is actually true.  Unusual gait is often a defining feature (although I don't think it could ever be used diagnostically because NTs can have funny walks for a variety of reasons sometimes too).

Here is some interesting research:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16554961

Although it does say there are abnormalities with AS/HFA it states that their results found "No quantitative gait deficits were found for the Asperger's disorder group."

I would dispute this based on anecdotal evidence alone, I wonder what the size of the study was with regard to participants.  I don't imagine it was a large-scale study.

@Longman, I have drift problems too, hence I walk into things.  It's exacerbated by the fact that i am in my own world so unless sensory problems cause me to be on alert I'm not paying full attention all the time.  I've been told I have a funny run a few times too.

I have previously even walked into a manhole which had the cover off, even though I had known beforehand the cover was off.  I somehow forgot, but I think this boils down to the need for routine and sameness, my brain was expecting the same experience as normal and something was different (the manhole cover being off).  Anything different either causes stress or gets blocked out.

I heard once that we, on the spectrum, have a quite distinctive gait (style of walking).

Pretty sure I've even heard it said that someone who knows what to look for can spot the Autistics in a crowd enitrely from the way they walk and without knowing anything else about them.

I don't know how true that really is though.

I can understand Azaezl's experience with arms. I had so many comments when younger about the way my arms flailed about when walking that in the end I walked with my arms dead straight by my sides. This put strain on walking and balance, and I have since found a compromise.

...just to illustrate my point, I have just returned from going out...where I managed to walk into a lamp post!

Pockets are great for that!   Shoulder bags too.  That's another walk I've been told I have, the military walk, so perhaps when we try to swing our arms like other people it just doesn't work, I mean it feels unnatural to us so it probably looks unnatural too.

I'm always so concious of my arms when walking, they hang by my sides or my left one swings ever so slightly, if I try to make them swing like other people's I end up looking like I'm marching. If I concentrate on swinging my arms I become too aware of how my legs are moving and I feel so weird and awkward and as if I'm walking in a strange manner. I tend to wear hooded tops/coats with pockets so I can walk with my hands in my pockets, makes it so much easier.

My experiences of walking are complicated by a deformity of my ankle joints, but nevertheless the way I walk has always been a big issue, and entertaining I guess for others. I'm very clumsy and suffer from drift, whereby I seem to go to one side all the time, and collide with door frames. I also get floating, disorientated feelings.

I have observed others on the spectrum and running may be a stronger indicator as most I know seem to run very strangely, and probably ought not to run in public!

I get very uncomfortable when walkways are busy, perhaps because I need a steady stride, but also because the drift effect makes things harder. It ramps up my stress levels, especially where people are crossing in front of me or merging. I found this also with driving where, though having had a licence I never drove for years. Busy intersections are very disturbing.

I find that also, sometimes it feels I am walking on a threadmill.

I try and just look up straight ahead at blue sky in distance so this constricts the eyes so I relax and breath easy and gentle.

It took me a while to learn to co-ordinate moving my arms and legs so my left arm went forward whilst my left leg went back etc. Vestibular problems mean the ground sometimes seems to tilt and move under my feet, particularly on "bad autism" days - does anyone lese have these? So I fall over quite often. This is more of a problem as I get older as I hurt myself more in falling.

I had a bad episode of this the other day, I became so hyper-aware of my legs I felt like I was walking strangely and over-emphasising the roll of my feet on the ground.  I have in the past been told I walked like this particular character from an advert that walked as if it had no skeletal structure, or at least was sort of floppy, with a rolling walk.

And with arms, it's like they don't want to swing like other peoples', they'd rather just hang down limp and they feel awkward, like they're in the way or something, and I have consciously made myself swing them but it doesn't feel entirely natural and one swings less than the other.

I do think many of us are sort of out of tune with co-ordination, and when you couple that with balance issues we're an accident waiting to happen!