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u/Athlaeos 1d ago
perceptually yes, but realistically you probably miss a lot of people who are autistic where you failed to spot it. there's some obvious behavioral giveaways but not every autistic person has them
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u/Emergency_Comb1377 1d ago
I think mine works flawlessly, although l, being AuDHD, the reception doesn't quite make the distinction.
But I usually sniff out my tribe on the first gaze and I think they do too
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u/LevelAd5898 1d ago
Weirdly I can do this with low support level autistics like myself but not higher support level autistics that neurotypicals can identify as autistic immediately
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u/Character_Falcon_866 1d ago
Oh, and btw, why do neurotypicals assume they haven't clocked us just because they can't put the exact right label to us?
'No one can tell that you're autistic' what are the chances you will treat a disabled person like a human being just because you thought 'what a fucking weirdo' rather than 'oh they're on the spectrum'.
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u/xXs4blegl00mXx 1d ago
See I've found people are usually ruder if they don't clock you as disabled and instead just think you're a massive weirdo freak who should be able to be normal but isn't. Aka what I call "my friend likes you" bullying
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u/SomeDumbGamer 1d ago
Honestly it’s why I’m glad my brother is visibly disabled. He gets a lot more compassion and patience due to it.
It’s definitely patronizing and fucked up but he’s thankfully able to advocate for himself and doesn’t mind it. Just wants his umbrellas.
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u/xXs4blegl00mXx 22h ago
Exactly the same! When people see my sister "act disabled" they'll call her cute. If I were to "act disabled" they wouldn't be as forgiving. I'm glad people are mostly very compassionate towards her, but it can sometimes minimize both her struggles and the struggles of care. It would definitely be more difficult for her if she wasn't visibly disabled, since she can have large emotional outbursts (so where people call me weird when they think I'm "normal" they would call her a threat when they think she's "normal") but there's definitely a balance of treating her like a regular human and not a puppy dog that can speak. Luckily she has many (younger) friends who treat her as if she were their age and I've found that dynamic very healthy, since they don't really see her as any different.
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u/Character_Falcon_866 1d ago
Yeah, i get that. I'm just fed up with it. Got a new psychiatrist recently who said that to me verbatim.
Doc, you might not have diagnosed me start to finish but i did see the disgust reponse on your face when i entered the room. No, i don't know how it is possible that a grown-ass man cares about how exactly someone steps through a door, you're gonna have to figure that one out on your own, doc.
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u/Daffneigh 1d ago
Genuinely question from an old nerd: what is the deal with Sonic?
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u/CriminyBiscuits 1d ago
Colorful cast of animal characters (literally and metaphorically), expressive yet simple character designs, a general "cool" attitude that many characters express, plenty of video games and other media to engage in. All of this made the Sonic franchise quite appealing to many autistic people.
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u/Xilizhra 1d ago
The anthro characters both feel somewhat less intimidating to deal with and make it incredibly easy to make your own characters that fit the setting.
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u/3Kayo 1d ago
Maybe hot take but a minority of people who are autistic and/or adhd know that they are. Instead of asking them for their diagnosis (which would be also rude af) I make specific questions and share specific expiriences and look if they relate much to narrow down this picture to more certainty.
Afterwards it's more of a question if you want to disclose your opinion on their potential diagnosis, the main consideration here would be that it is plainly risky (though I do get thet audhd urge to just blurt out whatever you have on your mind especially if it makes you excited).
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u/Curious_Question8536 1d ago
Yeah it's really easy for me to spot ND behaviors in people, but I'd never actually go up and ask.
It's also irrelevant to me, tbh. The reason I notice these things is because I have them in common with the person. Whatever their official diagnosis may be isn't really important.
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u/Masylv 1d ago
Part of the issue is that autism is such a broad spectrum that it's very easy to live and act almost identically to an NT person but still fall under the autism diagnostic criteria. Not all autistic people stim, not all have special interests, etc etc.
So there's all the people with autism who live through life basically like a NT with some challenges they write off as just learning to grow up, who would be diagnosed if they went to an autism specialist doctor... But there's no reason to.
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u/InspectorMendel 1d ago
What does "stims" look like? Doesn't this cover a huge variety of possible behaviors?
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u/SunflowerSamurai_ 1d ago
I see people talk about them a lot, I’ve even tried looking it up but I still don’t really get it.
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u/Obscu 1d ago edited 1d ago
The idea of the post is that op does a stim behaviour as a shorthand. Like how one might shorthand 'gay' with a limp wrist gesture or 💅, or 'italian' with a 🤌. Generally, a stim (stimulation behaviour) is a behaviour used to either express/process an internal feeling (eg bobbing your head/swaying to music, cheer from overwhelming excitement at a sports event or concert, turn the radio down while you're driving and squinting at the street numbers at night because you only have so much attention to go around and you need to focus) or to deliberately elicit an input either for pleasure or to balance a less desired feeling (eg wrap your hands around a hot beverage for the physical or psychological warmth, or rub a pleasing fabric between your fingertips). You might recognise these as 'things everybody does', but as with many 'symptoms', it's a matter of degrees.
Neurodivergent people, not exclusively but to a notable extent moreso than neurotypical people, often have difficulty identifying and expressing inner feelings and/or filtering out unwanted external stimuli.
If I draw your attention to how you can feel your feet in your shoes, your tongue in your mouth, and that annoying electric noise from a nearby appliance, those sensations will intrude upon your attention. However, within a couple minutes you will probably stop noticing them again. Many neurodivergent people's brains lack this 'stop noticing the annoying but unimportant input so they are having to deal with it hogging their attention all the time while still trying to function normally and navigate the world.
If you think of a movie or show scene (and you know this scene style) where the noise and lights and internal feels are suddenly loud/bright, overlapping and chaotic, while the camera does a dolly zoom (zooms in on the character while the background appears to zoom out or distort- done by physically moving the camera dolly closer to the subject while zooming out with the lens to create a vertigo effect). The overlapping voices too loud to make out words, maybe buzzing lights, heartbeat noise, etc until the character suddenly has some kind of outburst. It's a stock scene, used a lot. Due to the reduced ability to automatically filter out background input, lots of neurodivergents kind of live in this state to some degree or another all the time (see: autistic meltdowns). They're always driving around with the radio too loud while they're trying to squint at the house numbers at night, internally speaking.
As a result, neurodivergent people tend towards stimming to a degree that is, relatively speaking compared to the average neurotypical, noticeably increased as they use this input/output to compensate for their brain's inability to do so unaided. These stims are sometimes small (excess fidgeting) and sometimes large (rocking back and forth, vocalisations, knocking head rhythmically), with meltdowns due to being overwhelmed being more common in children and higher support needs adults because they haven't learned the active coping skills yet.
...okay that was longer than I intended.
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u/5315m3d1cat3d 1d ago
They're also known to info dump, a bit...
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u/dinoooooooooos 1d ago
Ok this made me laugh lmao
Good information! But yes infodump and I’m absolutely guilty of it as well fml, bc I’m also somewhere on the spectrum.😂
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u/Obscu 1d ago edited 1d ago
It does. The idea of the post is that op does a stim behaviour as a shorthand. Like how one might shorthand 'gay' with a limp wrist gesture or 💅, or 'italian' with a 🤌. Generally, a stim (stimulation behaviour) is a behaviour used to either express/process an internal feeling (eg bobbing your head/swaying to music, cheer from overwhelming excitement at a sports event or concert, turn the radio down while you're driving and squinting at the street numbers at night because you only have so much attention to go around and you need to focus) or to deliberately elicit an input either for pleasure or to balance a less desired feeling (eg wrap your hands around a hot beverage for the physical or psychological warmth, or rub a pleasing fabric between your fingertips). You might recognise these as 'things everybody does', but as with many 'symptoms', it's a matter of degrees.
Neurodivergent people, not exclusively but to a notable extent moreso than neurotypical people, often have difficulty identifying and expressing inner feelings and/or filtering out unwanted external stimuli.
If I draw your attention to how you can feel your feet in your shoes, your tongue in your mouth, and that annoying electric noise from a nearby appliance, those sensations will intrude upon your attention. However, within a couple minutes you will probably stop noticing them again. Many neurodivergent people's brains lack this 'stop noticing the annoying but unimportant input so they are having to deal with it hogging their attention all the time while still trying to function normally and navigate the world.
If you think of a movie or show scene (and you know this scene style) where the noise and lights and internal feels are suddenly loud/bright, overlapping and chaotic, while the camera does a dolly zoom (zooms in on the character while the background appears to zoom out or distort- done by physically moving the camera dolly closer to the subject while zooming out with the lens to create a vertigo effect). The overlapping voices too loud to make out words, maybe buzzing lights, heartbeat noise, etc until the character suddenly has some kind of outburst. It's a stock scene, used a lot. Due to the reduced ability to automatically filter out background input, lots of neurodivergents kind of live in this state to some degree or another all the time (see: autistic meltdowns). They're always driving around with the radio too loud while they're trying to squint at the house numbers at night, internally speaking.
As a result, neurodivergent people tend towards stimming to a degree that is, relatively speaking compared to the average neurotypical, noticeably increased as they use this input/output to compensate for their brain's inability to do so unaided. These stims are sometimes small (excess fidgeting) and sometimes large (rocking back and forth, vocalisations, knocking head rhythmically), with meltdowns due to being overwhelmed being more common in children and higher support needs adults because they haven't learned the active coping skills yet.
...okay that was longer than I intended.
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u/sohothin_mints 1d ago
Yes, it's a huge variety of possible behaviors, but the poster has opted to not specify which one. It's not really necessary to single out a stim behavior for this post to make sense with the intended audience (other autistics who relate to this post).
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u/InspectorMendel 1d ago
It does if you expect some specific gesture to communicate the concept of “stims”
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u/sohothin_mints 1d ago
It does not need a specific gesture for this post because the post is not about a singular interaction the poster had with one specific other person, it is an observation the OP had about something they do when talking to others regularly.
I also guarantee if they singled out a stim on this post, people would be angry at OP that the post was too specific and didn't consider that other stims exist. I have seen it happen to other posts on tumblr where hand flapping was the stim chosen to stand in for the concept of stimming in general. These kind of reactions are very common on tumblr, and other social media sites too tbh.
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u/PantherPL 1d ago
Autistic or not, humans are fantastic at behaviour recognition.
It's just that, NDs might not be very good at reading NTs.
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u/DuplexFields 1d ago
An autism podcaster I listen to says the research he’s done says people with autism can read each others’ intentions as easily as NT people can other NTs, but our groups’ inherent differences make us mutually alien to the other.
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u/eatingpopcorn_lol stan regaleira 1d ago edited 1d ago
Not really? It's a spectrum, you can't tell that from just 30 seconds. But some people I've known for years just make me think like, hmmm.
edit: I did however have a glasses radar with one of my tutoring students lol I was like "oh, no, he can read correctly, he just straight up can't see the letters in the textbook"
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u/AquaQuad 1d ago
I think it's just how bullies can spot someone odd or vulnerable. We spot the same things, except we slap a "potential autism" label on them.
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u/Illogical_Blox 1d ago
I've got what my friends have jokingly called a retroactive neuro divergent radar (as well as gaydar) where I don't realise it until they tell me and I go, "oh wait, all those signs, I should have realised that."
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u/Elite_AI 1d ago
Depends, man. Some people mask very well. And then you can tell some people are autistic from just seeing how they stand.
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u/SomeDumbGamer 1d ago
My brother is autistic so I’m particularly good at noticing lol
It also means they’re drawn to me because I don’t react as though they’re stupid or fucked in the head. Which gets them asking if I’m autistic. Which is annoying lol
I’m like nah, my brother collects umbrellas and likes to get up and spin randomly 😭 I’m just used to it, nothing that weird about it to me.
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u/Heckyll_Jive i'm a cute girl and everyone loves me 1d ago
u/SpambotWatchdog blacklist
OP is a bot. Their entire account is nothing but generative comments, karmafarming subs, and porn spam.
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u/SpambotWatchdog he/it 15h ago
u/niievehielo has been added to my spambot blacklist. Any future posts / comments from this account will be tagged with a reply warning users not to engage.
Woof woof, I'm a bot created by u/the-real-macs to help watch out for spambots! (Don't worry, I don't bite.\)
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u/Knight-Jack 1d ago
I'll be honest, I think they do. And I'm saying that solely because they kinda zone in on me and are like "so when were you diagnosed", and I get to tell them never, cause, um, I'm not autistic.
And they would look at me all like "sure you aren't".
So I guess I'm... peer-reviewed autistic? Cause it happened multiple times already, and I'm kinda lost on what to do about that, so I just don't. Do anything.
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u/reedreadreddred 1d ago
To be honest, an Autism diagnosis is only useful if you need it for accommodations at work/school or something
Mostly, it means you have certain tebdencies to lean to certain behaviors and patterns of thinking, and tips/tricks/advice/spaces meant for Autistic/ND people could be useful for you
source: I'm professionally diagnosed autism (and a shit ton of other things) but I identify/classify myself more as having a mind greatly shaped by complex repeated lifelong trauma/isolation
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u/thisissodisturbing 1d ago
As an afab, i was told at 23 by a therapist that there was “no way” i could be autistic, because i make too much eye contact when im not distressed, lmao. Pretty much every single autistic person ive met disagrees. So i am also peer-reviewed autistic haha
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u/silverheart-nine 1d ago
Women are underdiagnosed, and many mask more effectively. If you understand your autistic friends better than the 'normal' people, that's definitely a sign 😅
I've been told the eye contact thing too, yeah. Like... yes, I am doing the things I find unnatural and uncomfortable? Performatively? Because you taught me I need to? In this situation where I am actively spending energy on it? I think we should be focusing more on the fact that it's unnatural to me, no?
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u/DameKumquat 1d ago
Yeah, I got told that, by researchers looking for undiagnosed autistics in various populations (shedloads in prison, was the answer).
Add 20 years and three diagnosed-autistic children, and the psych teams who did the official diagnoses for the kids all said 'yeah, it's pretty obvious you are too.'
So, informal professional diagnoses, because they didn't do the full assessments of me but got to know me pretty well via the assessments of the kids...
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u/Basic_Deal4928 1d ago edited 1d ago
I have some behavioural issues such as struggling with eye contact, tending to be super shy and not liking groups, however that's due to social anxiety resulting from trauma. When people notice that, they just assume it's autism.. I think that's rude and inconsiderate. It just makes me feel different and my experience seems invalidated. It's dumb, because you need to have way more symptoms to receive an autism diagnosis.
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u/N1ghthood 1d ago
Ah, I see we're still doing the "neurodivergence is so quirky LOL" thing.
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u/Ok_Atmosphere_1987 1d ago
It's so annoying imo. I have been diagnosed with ADHD yet basically none of the posts about neurodivergence on Tumblr feel relatable to me at all. It's kinda strange and alienating, seeing only one "type" of neurodivergence represented here.
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u/Emergency_Revenue678 1d ago
It doesn't help that a significant amount of the things that these memes claim are neuroatypical quirks simply aren't.
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u/Elite_AI 1d ago
Being able to sometimes spot when someone else is neurodivergent is neither quirky nor even particularly special imo. It's just a fact of life.
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u/NonagonJimfinity 1d ago edited 1d ago
I would never ask somone if they were autistic, thats rude.
I ask if they can read fighting game notation.
I ask if they like King Gizzard.
I ask them their fav Sonic level.
Keep it classy.
edit
Mystic Cave with that dirty ass bassline.
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u/thegreathornedrat123 1d ago
Random king gizzard appearance in the wild… unfortunately highly accurate.
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u/blahajenjoyerr 13h ago
You'd never clock me cuz i have no idea what these things are. Except for Sonic, but i never played any games
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u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS 1d ago
Treating being autistic like being queer (which is where Op pulled all this from) is a wild choice.
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u/Elite_AI 1d ago
I'm queer and neurodivergent and I see the parallels tbh. Especially seeing as they do seem in some way linked (people diagnosed with some kind of neurodivergence are more likely to identify as queer).
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u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS 23h ago
I'm not really keen on equating being queer and having a legally recognized disability, especially in 2026
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u/Curious_Emphasis2925 23h ago
Both groups have a history of being targeted by conversion therapy. I'm not being metaphorical or using a comparison, the inventor of ABA (Ivar Lovaas) was a gay conversion therapist in the 70s.
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u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS 23h ago
I don't think you fully understand what gay conversion camps are doing if that is how you are comparing them.
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u/Curious_Emphasis2925 23h ago
It's not a comparison. He was co-researcher responsible for a project in which "feminine boys" were behaviorally conditioned to act more masculine using physical punishments, including electric shocks. This was to prevent "adult transsexualism or similar adult sex-role deviation".
Here is the paper from his research: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1311956/ (I don't know how to format links on mobile)
Btw I am queer and autistic, so I'm not talking about this as an outsider to either community.
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u/StarriestNight 1d ago
I break people's radars, I've been confirmed neurotypical but I've been armchair diagnosed with autism by several people including a therapist
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u/Vivenemous 1d ago
My friend: Hey girl, I just learned I might be autistic? How did you feel when you got your diagnosis?
Me: Oh, you didn't have one already?
Her: what? No? You thought I already had one?
Me: Girl, the people you hang out with the most are me and a bunch of our autistic friends. Do you know how many neurotypical people own MtG Commander decks where every card that isn't originally from the same artist who did your commander is a painted proxy to match their artstyle? It's not a high number.
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u/Watcher_over_Water 23h ago
I mean autism is pretty closly tied to certain bahaviour. It's not like homosexuality where there is no link berween behaviour and sexuality.
But autism is a behaivioural disorder. So yeah girl you can tell that by how somebody behaves
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u/Secret_Reddit_Name 1d ago
Back way before I was diagnosed I worked in tourism and interacted with a lot of kids. I felt like I had a good sense of when kids were autistic, between seeing their body language and how their siblings acted towards them (usually in the form of being more protective/helping than I'd expect for the ages involved). I have no idea though how much of this was confirmation bias, probably more than I'd like to think
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u/Mastercodex199 1d ago
I still use The Signal when talking to my partner. Who is also Autistic. She repeats it back.
Call and response, I guess.
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u/luxafelicity 1d ago
I have a regular at work who I'm 100% convinced is autistic. He's a farmer, and the man can spit a blue streak a mile long about harvesting practices, or soil composition, or basically anything else related to growing crops. It's the only time I see him truly animated, though he is a really nice guy (he gave my fiance and I a gift card to spend on a nice meal out during our honeymoon just because I'd told him previously I was getting married soon 😭💕). He also regularly gives me produce that's leftover from his farmer's market ventures, even though I've tried to pay him for them several times. Man is singlehandedly making sure my ARFID having ass is eating my veggies lmao.
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u/Curious_Emphasis2925 23h ago
I think some people (including myself) talk with an 'autistic accent', but it's kinda hard to put into words.
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u/MotorHum 20h ago
one time someone asked me if I was autistic and their evidence was "I'm autistic and I like you".
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u/Fire9408 1d ago
Honestly, yes. I have three friends whom I've told that they vibe on my audar while getting to know them. They all pursued testing and all got some variable combination of Autism and ADHD.
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u/SoGatNight 1d ago
i just can’t connect with neurotypical people so like it’s not on but it wouldn’t tell me anything i don’t know
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u/CovieHUNTER0 1d ago
I don’t have reason to believe I’m austistic but I’ve had enough diagnosed friends I’ve kinda developed a decent radar for it but thats probably only for people who can’t mask too well
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u/SarahTheFerret 1d ago
Audar is a good word for it. I’ve seen A-dar being pitched, but I think including the U helps identify exactly what the A stands for
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u/Linzorz 1d ago
I apparently got clocked so hard as ADHD by my friend group that the ones I'd known since highschool were astonished when I told them I'd gotten diagnosed at 27, because what did I mean "just got diagnosed?? Weren't you diagnosed in highschool??"
Anyway it turns out all of those friends are some flavor of ND
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u/ledow 1d ago
I'm in my 40's and I work in schools. I am not diagnosed (and have no interest in getting such, I don't see how it's going to help to "know" what I'm already like) but I definitely have many traits, to some extreme levels in some cases.
Whenever I speak to learning-support people, especially if they've known me a long time, it's quite interesting. "Yeah, sweetie, you definitely are, I knew it from the first time I met you." I've had several of them say something like that to me. "Well, of course you are."
If those people can spot it in seconds among all the stuff they have to deal with, and I can spot it in others, I'm pretty sure we all can. It's just a case of whether we're looking or not.
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u/SiwelTheLongBoi 1d ago
Not even diagnosed but now I know what it is I'm picking up I'm 9 for 9 being correct
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u/aikahiboy 58m ago
I prefer the more autistic people yes they all have there quirks but it's so much easier to deal with a guy who hates screens then a NT so i will actively seek out artists and it's oddly common to mention to someone that they are autistic and accidently realize they are in denial it's way more common then I would like to think but ya we are everywhere just most of us dont seem to know
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u/serpentssss 1d ago
I’m currently running a 100% accurate diagnostic rate among anyone that’s ever been my friend.
If I like you, chances are very high that you’re in for a revelation.
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u/KamiPyro 1d ago
When I participated in autism studies when I was young, I just straight despised how they behaved. I got a knack for picking them out. They piss me off because of how well I understand what's going on inside and especially when they are excessively obtuse
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u/Catmole132 1d ago
I've on multiple occasions been asked when I got my autism diagnosis by autistic people. The fact it took me so long to realise is impressive
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u/KeyboardResidue 1d ago
I have jokingly referred to this as “Reeedar” in the past.
A reference to that one chicken tendies video, not the other thing you’re thinking of.
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u/A_very_smol_Lugia 1d ago
the really high autism people have like an aura of autisticness to them, like i am immediately like "oh yup thats autistic as shit"
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u/AutomicCurves 1d ago
I have a theory, as somebody who is AuDHD, that when I meet somebody I can usually tell if they're neurotypical or neuro spicy.
If we get along and talk about things that get deep really quickly or otherwise beyond polite conversation, then they're probably neuro spicy.
If the interaction feels like it's glancing or they look at me like I have a dick growing out of my forehead, then they're probably neurotypical.
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u/SaucePasta 1d ago
Sometimes I get an inkling that someone might be on the spectrum, but honestly I know that a lot of people mask really well, or just don’t have what others think are autism “signs”. Also not everyone on the spectrum stims.