Adults with ASC - Walking

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.

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.