'When did you first realise that you were 'different'?'

Don't know if it was an indication of ASD, but finishing an entire set of Encyclopedia's aged 5 and asking my parents about covalent bonds might have been an early one.  I read anything back then.  Fiction, fact, everything in between.  I never had dyspraxia.   In fact I was the kid they couldnt keep in nursery.  I went out of childproof gates, over 9ft walls, over a couple of wooden gates.  i was the nightmare kid that could manipulate a situation and then spring free from confinement.  If I didnt manage to escape i'd just hide out somewhere in the playground.  im sure they were all close to a nervous breakdown for the year I spent there. ;)

Special schools didn't really exist back then (70's) and my parents even to this day have a view that their is nothing wrong with me, so going to a school for gifted children was never going to be on the books.  What they did do was ensure my life was rich with experiences, like holidays abroad for a month, speaking languages abroad, trips to museums, etc.  So I cant really complain.  But in school it wasn't good.  Outside school I made do.

__Pathfinder__ said:

finishing an entire set of Encyclopedia's aged 5

It sounds as if you may have been hyperlexic.  I had the same kind of precocious reading ability too, and it fits with other things which I discovered from my Mum's contribution to my autism assessment. In adulthood, I still have a very strong compulsion to read any and all words that I see, to the point of it being an annoying distraction sometimes. Even when I already know what the words will say, I'm still inexorably drawn to them (e.g. back of toiletry bottles when I'm sat on the loo, all the details on bus tickets, beer-mats on a pub wall...)

A new word.  I had a look at that and their are some correllations between my experience and that syndrome. :)

I still have this particular compulsion.  Nowadays its very useful having a compulsion to read anything and everything, especially when food related and you have severe allergies.  I have also read random items in toilets over the years and am apparently annoying when i go to new places due to always studying important information that everyone else ignores (fire plans, evacuation plans, any other safety information).

A new word.  I had a look at that and their are some correllations between my experience and that syndrome. :)

I still have this particular compulsion.  Nowadays its very useful having a compulsion to read anything and everything, especially when food related and you have severe allergies.  I have also read random items in toilets over the years and am apparently annoying when i go to new places due to always studying important information that everyone else ignores (fire plans, evacuation plans, any other safety information).