Tony Attwood is Autistic

The expanding diagnostic criteria caught up with both of them. For one, I would like to know what sensory difficulties they have, as these are usually lifelong and, to me, are a bit of a giveaway. 

My sensory problems are mostly tactile - synthetic textiles and clothing labels - and noise. When I found such things in the literature on autism (and diagnostic manuals) it was the clincher that convinced me that I was autistic.

He's a great man, and it's not for me to decide who is or isn't autistic, but my own view is that I'm not persuaded. I don't see anything autistic about him and his communication style seems highly neuronormal to me. I feel the same about Sol Smith, whose book I recently started and abandoned because I couldn't see any connection with what I understand as autism.

I mask seamlessly the vast majority of the time and I am, even by allistic standards, reasonably eloquent and capable of adjusting what I say to suit my interlocutor(s). Where allistics use subconscious abilities to navigate conversations, I use my intellect, the result appears to be the same, but is achieved by very different means. It can be tiring, of course, like being on stage having to remember lines and stage directions all the time I'm in out in public.

As an example, when I am introduced to someone new I can never remember their name afterwards. My brain is too occupied, gauging the strength of my handshake, remembering to smile and think of something appropriate to say, for any 'bandwidth' to be left for taking in information.

I mask seamlessly the vast majority of the time and I am, even by allistic standards, reasonably eloquent and capable of adjusting what I say to suit my interlocutor(s). Where allistics use subconscious abilities to navigate conversations, I use my intellect, the result appears to be the same, but is achieved by very different means. It can be tiring, of course, like being on stage having to remember lines and stage directions all the time I'm in out in public.

As an example, when I am introduced to someone new I can never remember their name afterwards. My brain is too occupied, gauging the strength of my handshake, remembering to smile and think of something appropriate to say, for any 'bandwidth' to be left for taking in information.

Yes, I'm similar, and I'm sure that would resonate with many of us here. In my judgement Attwood does not look like an autistic person simply working hard and using intellect to navigate conversations. He's far more natural. 

Martin said:

I am introduced to someone new I can never remember their name afterwards

Ditto. 

If I can manage to do so - I try to find out something unusual from people (an interest, a pet's name, something less commonplace ideally) - to hopefully give me something to act as a "hook" against which to tie together the other new information / context and aid future recall.

It isn't fail-safe (I find it worth the extra effort ...more times than not).

When it is more likely to all fall apart; in the presence of complex competing background noise - game over.