Signs of autism could be encoded in the way you walk • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by pengaru » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 5:01 PM UTC

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #207

sandworm101 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read a paper once about female celebs/models and eyesight. They tend to have poorer-than-average vision. The theory was than poor eyesight increased thier percieved eye contact with stangers. (They could not see the other person and so would not look away.) This made them more noticable by others, which is not a bad thing when trying to get jobs in entertainment. An other theory was that they needed to try harder t…

I am short-sighted and when I take off my glasses, I can look at the other person because everything is blurry and I can concentrate better. A French actor (Christophe Lambert) has a special expression when he looks at the camera. It is because he is short-sighted and does not look exactly in the typical spot other would look at. He could not use contact lenses so there was no way to change that. The people who fough…

I'm the same way. Removing glasses is an excellent hack, but it also means I'm not making eye contact as I'm just looking at the person's general direction.

Earlier in my career during interviews I'd always tell the interviewer "I'm listening, keep talking, I just need to look at the floor or wall to concentrate or I get too distracted by your animated-ness" and this was in the days before autism entered the zeitgeist. Nobody cared or thought it was particularly odd as far as I could tell. We were accustomed to nerds who sat alone thinking at computers most of the time being quirky, and appreciated the need to concentrate (private offices with doors that close!).

But as I get older it's become more necessary to look at something else while listening to anyone tell me anything I intend to grok. And I'm pretty certain ~everyone now assumes I'm autistic because of it. Never been diagnosed as such.

My interpretation and internal modeling of things is highly visual and genuine visual input is a sort of noise that interferes with my mental reconstruction of what I'm hearing. I have no idea if that overlaps with autism.

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

#232

Post by amai » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 5:03 PM UTC

Signs of silliness are also encoded in the way you walk:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_of_Silly_Walks

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

#233

Post by suzzer99 » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 5:18 PM UTC

andreykocevski wrote: post #180

suzzer99 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High school is truly fun for maybe 15% of the students, is an utter nightmare for 15%, and has its moments but still generally sucks for everyone else.

High school is pretty fun in europe, especially where I am from. First year of high school is when you start drinking alcohol, smoking, going out, parties, girls, really all the cool stuff. Its the period when you step into the world of adolescence. But of course american high school experience is nothing like this and its rather depressing, considering I lived in the US and have known few high schoolers that were fa…

Euro teens seem a lot more comfortable in their own skin than American teens.

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

#234

Post by suzzer99 » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 5:20 PM UTC

drewcoo wrote: post #203

suzzer99 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High school is truly fun for maybe 15% of the students, is an utter nightmare for 15%, and has its moments but still generally sucks for everyone else.

What percent of students learn to pull stats out of thin air? Everyone I knew then, even the "cool kids," thought high school was some bleak hell punctuated with moments of extraordinary joy. I have no idea whether that's due to hormones or school or what.

I know a few people who had the time of their lives in high school. Maybe 15% is high, I was just proxying the popular kids. I'm sure some of them were miserable. But some non-popular kids probably had a decent time.

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

#235

Post by thewebguyd » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 5:50 PM UTC

chneu wrote: post #171

bluefirebrand wrote: post #17

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

I have several friends who are therapist/mental health professionals. They've all mentioned parents shopping around for autism diagnosis for their children who have ADHD. Apparently ADHD isn't cool, but autism is weirdly seen as "better". Over diagnosis is already happening. Just like adhd and ocd.

> Apparently ADHD isn't cool, but autism is weirdly seen as "better".

Unfortunately, I've found that to be true myself as well.

ADHD is still widely misunderstood by the general population, and it is in fact more difficult to get accommodations vs. autism. People without it just don't understand and can't envision the special hell that having this level of executive dysfunction brings in your day to day life.

For some reason, people view autism as "something they can't help" and yet don't view ADHD in the same way and will turn around say "idk man, you just need to focus and do the thing, it's not hard."

ADHD is also a neurodevelopmental disorder and a lot of work still needs to be done for society to view it as such, and move away from harmful attitudes like "they're just lazy."

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

#236

Post by TrnsltLife » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 5:52 PM UTC

ghushn3 wrote: post #103

benreesman wrote: post #93

I'm sure everyone involved means well, but we are really starting to embrace a culture of defining "normal" down to some arbitrary amount that seems to have no floor. I'm all for making sure that effective treatments are made available to anyone they might help, but couldn't a lot of this be addressed society just...being tolerant of diversity in people? Gating everyone through "thrives in American High School" as a…

I tend to agree, as an autistic person. And a lot of autistic people hold the belief that, "My autism is not a problem, your expectations that I behave like you do are the problem." If I need to move a little differently, or not hold eye contact when I speak, the fact that I get made fun of is the problem. If we just accepted, "hey, some people are like that" more, I think we'd have a lot fewer problems.

The problem is, we are animals, even though we are divine offspring as well. We have an ability to moderate our behavior to a degree, but we are also governed by physiological instinct.

Try making inappropriate eye contact with a human male. You'll probably live to make it to the next experiment, even if you do get punched. Now try it with a gorilla or chimp.

Sexual cues, hunger, aggression/submission postures and responses, whether calls (i.e. communication, speech) engenders trust and connection or mistrust and threat. These things can't be completely overcome, and if they could, our species would have lost the underlying structure and template that allows us to build the greater achievements of self-control and civilization.

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

#237

Post by thewebguyd » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 6:01 PM UTC

cardanome wrote: post #154

forgotoldacc wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fear of over-diagnosis makes no sense. It feels rational to me, especially coming from a society where everything that's considered a syndrome needs to be treated and washed away with medication. Back in the 90s, every boy who laughed or had any sort of fun in my school was recommended to be put in ritalin and other ADHD meds. I was a quiet kid, but like any child, had a moment of goofiness here and there. And…

> If you've got autism and the biggest thing that stands out is the way you walk... I don't think dragging a kid to a doctor to be told they're not normal is really all that beneficial. There are very strict criteria on how people are to be diagnosed. More importantly you are NOT getting diagnosed if you are just happy and don't need any help. You can NOT be diagnosed with autism without any support needs. Same as yo…

I said in an earlier comment that the general population doesn't understand the special hell that being ADHD is when it comes to just trying to function in society, and I have to say I don't think I've ever seen it explained so clearly to the point where I felt like you were describing my life.

Thank you for sharing.

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

#238

Post by ryanmcbride » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 6:24 PM UTC

TrnsltLife wrote: post #236

ghushn3 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree, as an autistic person. And a lot of autistic people hold the belief that, "My autism is not a problem, your expectations that I behave like you do are the problem." If I need to move a little differently, or not hold eye contact when I speak, the fact that I get made fun of is the problem. If we just accepted, "hey, some people are like that" more, I think we'd have a lot fewer problems.

The problem is, we are animals, even though we are divine offspring as well. We have an ability to moderate our behavior to a degree, but we are also governed by physiological instinct. Try making inappropriate eye contact with a human male. You'll probably live to make it to the next experiment, even if you do get punched. Now try it with a gorilla or chimp. Sexual cues, hunger, aggression/submission postures and re…

jumping to a mad level of conclusions here to justify your discomfort with other people

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

#239

Post by NoGravitas » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 6:34 PM UTC

GoatInGrey wrote: post #122

benreesman wrote: post #93

I'm sure everyone involved means well, but we are really starting to embrace a culture of defining "normal" down to some arbitrary amount that seems to have no floor. I'm all for making sure that effective treatments are made available to anyone they might help, but couldn't a lot of this be addressed society just...being tolerant of diversity in people? Gating everyone through "thrives in American High School" as a…

If you have autism and experience dysfunction at such a small level that you can put the blame on other people, then consider yourself extremely lucky. I volunteer at an autism center and many of those individuals struggle to maintain hygiene, feed themselves, and perform other basic aspects of living in ways that persist regardless of how tolerant their peers may or may not be. Of course, these individuals are not a…

You come into contact with those individuals specifically because they have high support needs.

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

#240

Post by nancyminusone » Thu, Jul 17, 2025, 6:40 PM UTC

andsoitis wrote: post #123

yndoendo wrote: post #97

I am hesitant to post this because of JFK JR and ignoring with the politicians in power against ASD. Gait is not constant in the stride. It all depends on the footwear. The constant for me is being silent while walking. Be the ball of your feet or the heels. Having auditory issues / sensitive to sound, I walk to be silent and unheard. Walking and scaring wildlife and other humans was a personally taught process. I ca…

> I want to walk up to a person and they don't know. That’s usually not cool.

I never do this on purpose but it happens. People are usually baffled at how a 6'4 person can "appear" out of nowhere, and I'm always wondering how I could have possibly be hidden.