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Signs of autism could be encoded in the way you walk

sciencealert.com

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Re: Signs of autism could be encoded in the way you walk

#11

Post by nitwit005 »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #3

- toe-walking, walking on the balls of the feet - in-toeing, walking with one or both feet turned inwards - out-toeing, walking with one or both feet turned out. I thought that toe walking was called out two decades ago when I was in university - I remember it being mentioned in a psych class. Otherwise, that kind of includes everyone who doesn't walk with feet straight, doesn't it?

I also remember that, and asymmetric baby crawling. That was decades back.

I guess the real "news" is just that it made it into the DSM:

> Having an "odd gait" is now listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a supporting diagnostic feature of autism.

Re: Signs of autism could be encoded in the way you walk

#12

Post by generalizations »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #3

- toe-walking, walking on the balls of the feet - in-toeing, walking with one or both feet turned inwards - out-toeing, walking with one or both feet turned out. I thought that toe walking was called out two decades ago when I was in university - I remember it being mentioned in a psych class. Otherwise, that kind of includes everyone who doesn't walk with feet straight, doesn't it?

Basically a measure of whether or not you make an effort to emulate your peers. If you naturally walk weird and don't care about fitting in, then....you're probably on the spectrum.

Re: Signs of autism could be encoded in the way you walk

#13

Post by EvanAnderson »

msgodel wrote: post #4

Huh. My last girlfriend told me I had "the gay walk" and never could figure out what she meant. I wonder if this is it.

I emailed and spoke on the phone w/ my wife for a over a month before we met face-to-face. She told me, years later, she anticipated I'd have a particular gait. When we finally met I did not disappoint. She has described it as an "effeminate" gait.

We recently moved into house with wood floors. I experience my daughter and wife's gaits in new way. Their footfalls have a distinct "thud-thud-thud" with the landing of their heels first, whereas mine are a lot lighter. My daughter definitely didn't inherit my gait, even if she did inherit some of my psychological and mental eccentricities.

Re: Signs of autism could be encoded in the way you walk

#14

Post by naysunjr »

Am constantly reminding people my gait is off due to post surgery scarring internally creating a tension.

Now everyone gonna think I’m autistic. Not that there’s anything wrong with being autistic. It’s the pop science mindset of the aggregate that’s the problem.

There’s a lot of phrenology and humours type pseudoscience within these analysis. Social gossip effort to normalize what we are despite physics we cannot control making all those choices for us.

Re: Signs of autism could be encoded in the way you walk

#16

Post by kridsdale1 »

Weryj wrote: post #9
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had "the gay walk" Alright, that's enough HN for me today, I'm outie. Have a great evening y'all.

Hey, I'm the innie, lets see what HN has today… oh my

You’re going to love today’s perk: a cake.

Re: Signs of autism could be encoded in the way you walk

#17

Post by bluefirebrand »

I suspect that there are signs of autism or other neurodivergences encoded in a lot of our body language, and we're really only starting to qualify what those behaviors are

But we also should be careful not to over-diagnose neurodivergence based on outward behavior. Not everyone who fidgets is ADHD

Re: Signs of autism could be encoded in the way you walk

#19

Post by Telemakhos »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #3

- toe-walking, walking on the balls of the feet - in-toeing, walking with one or both feet turned inwards - out-toeing, walking with one or both feet turned out. I thought that toe walking was called out two decades ago when I was in university - I remember it being mentioned in a psych class. Otherwise, that kind of includes everyone who doesn't walk with feet straight, doesn't it?

People should be careful with basing psychological stereotypes on gait, as there's already an extensive legacy framework of stereotypes based on gait—are these new stereotypes meaningfully different medical observations grounded in facts, or are they just more stereotypes? Literature on Native Americans, for example, often claims that they walk on the balls of the feet in distinction to "the Anglo," who walks on his heels. For example:

> Our sources say that Native Americans tended to land on the ball of the foot (a "forefoot strike"), or flat-footed ("midfoot strike"), rather than landing on the heel and rolling forward ("heel strike"). [0: 90]

> Our sources indicate that Native Americans commonly walked with toes pointed straight ahead or turned slightly inward, rather than turned outward. [0: 91]

I've pulled just one article here, but there's a huge trove of racial and ethnic gait stereotypes with all sorts of moral implications. It's important not to repeat that stereotyping when trying to address autism.

[0] Ranalli, B. 2019. "Thoreau's Indian Stride." The Concord Saunterer 27: 89-110. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45271429

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