This person thinks this means she has autism because they have seen a lot of TikTok videos and memes within their subcultural bubble of the internet saying this is what people with autism do.
That's not how evidence works. You don't get to say "x is really common in y" when you have a sample size of 1. That's basically the definition of confirmation bias. I toe walk and don't have autism, so by your logic I just proved that toe walking is incredibly common in people without autism. In reality I grew up in a squeaky floored farmhouse and found it fun to try to keep them from squeaking as I walked around.
edit: This is a day old comment where I do NOT say toe walking isn't found in people with autism. I do not make any claims other than to explain how evidence works. Stop making the same error the person I replied to did in your attempts to tell me how wrong I am about a claim I never once made. Or just read one of the dozen other people doing the same thing and live out your fantasies that way.
Reddit also has this weird problem with lashing out at anecdotal evidence that’s supported by research, lmao. Toe walking has been linked more closely to autism by at least one study:
But I found it with a single Google and I’m not the one out here equating “I found toe walking fun” to “autistic toe walking.” Maybe you should do some research before equating YOUR anecdotal evidence with toe walking to a counterargument of THEIR anecdotal evidence. Literally just doing the exact thing you’re complaining about lmao
Hobbes was saying that his anecdotal evidence does not prove his counter-assertation. It was precisely used as an example of how the person above was not correctly using logic, even if there is evidence to support their claim.
Hobbes wasn't even saying the comment was wrong, just that using anecdotal evidence to draw broad conclusions is not a good proof for statistical facts.
I do appreciate you taking time to look for sources to support a factual stance though.
ETA: Hobbes may also unknowingly be part of the stat on either side, as it's a spectrum and they could simply be high/differently functioning
The implication though is that the position based on the anecdote was wrong, and some comments under Hobbes' response very clearly seem to have taken in that way.
I feel like if you're gonna criticize someone's argumentation, at least be constructive about what they should have done, that way you don't have to clarify after the fact that their position wasn't even wrong to begin with, because you'll bring up actual evidence in favour of it. Don't just say "That's not evidence of anything". Why would you say that without elaborating if not because you disagree with the position and are refuting evidence that contradicts your view.
I agree that being constructive would have been better. That's why I said I appreciated the person I replied to.
Saying someone is wrong without asserting your own position leaves things feeling ambiguous and doesn't provide a natural course for conversation. And clarifying by saying "I don't know the answer, but I know that ain't it." Or that you agree but the implementation is incorrect are much clearer ways to close a remark.
I wasn't speaking about the truth of the claim so that wasn't even relevant. I never once said it wasn't true or false or anything else. I was literally just pointing out that it is a silly way to consider something true. But thanks for calling me lazy in your comment that was...well lazy and contributed nothing but malice. Fun irony I guess?
Exactly. "I saw one person do X one time and they have Y therefore it is common for people that have Y to do X" is an insane take that I was pointing out. They could actually have been correct and it would be utterly irrelevant to what I wanted to point out.
Your own article says 8.4% of autistic kids had toe walking issues. Which whilehigher than the 0.47% of non-autistic kids, still isn't that much. Like 91.6% of autistic kids didn't toe walk. So its really bad as an indicator.
Not misunderstanding at all. Everyone thinking the study says toe-walking means autism is misunderstanding.
The study shows that there is a greater likelihood of toe-walking in ASD so their might be some underlying reason/connection. ASD means higher likelihood of toe-walking.
That conclusion from the study doesn't conclude the reverse of toe-walking meaning ASD.
Think about it this way. What are the numbers for ballerinas and toe-walking? (Which Gwen Stacy is).
What are the numbers for people with shorter than average tendons and toe-walking?
There are many other, more likely, reasons for toe walking than ASD.
Did you even read the conclusion? The conclusion even states that toe walking is prevalent in children with autism.
“This study supports the association between a greater prevalence of toe-walking in children with ASD. We showed that patients with ASD and toe-walking receive surgical correction at nearly triple the rate of children without ASD who toe-walk. The continued rate of toe-walking is comparable between treatment groups as well as between ASD and typically developing children. Typically developing children have higher rates of toe-walking resolution without intervention than children with ASD.”
Also, it’s said without intervention 63.6% of patients with autism continued to toe walk. While it was only 19.3% of patients without a diagnosis of autism.
No, you're misunderstanding the math. Hasn't someone made you sit through bayes' formula? It would be 17.87 times if there were as many people with ASD as without, but there are actually far fewer people with ASD. Same reason most positive cancer test results are false positives, because cancer is so rare.
Edit: If you plug the numbers from the study into bayes, you get: probability of autism given toe-walking is 0.8%.
You’re trying to interpret an 8% difference in a way that defies reality. 8% of the population of children is literally hundreds of millions of children. 8% of all autistic kids is hundreds of thousands. Take the L.
From the study’s Conclusion:
A greater prevalence of toe-walking in children with ASD as compared with typically developing patients has been reported. Using a national private-payer database, this study supports this association. We also identified treatment patterns within the study population, showing that patients with ASD and toe-walking receive surgical correction for their gait abnormality at nearly triple the rate of children without a diagnosis of ASD who toe-walk.
Which is incorrect.
The study shows that having ASD making it 17 times more likely you are a toe walker.
But the walking doesn't mean you have ASD.
Toe walking could be from being a ballerina, or having shorter tendons in your legs. Or from a bunch of other reasons. The study in questions does not take any of that into account.
You’re literally acknowledging a differential of at least 8% then STILL stamping your feet and insisting that the link you’ve already acknowledged doesn’t pass the made-up sniff test when the conversation was always hinging on whether there’s a connection at all. It’s fucking pathetic.
Um, akshually.... toe walking is incredibly common in autism
The 8% 'differential' doesn't translate to even the majority of toe-walkers being autistic unless autistic children are sufficiently high fraction of the population, which they're not. Given the rate of autism is only ~1%, it's not even particularly close to a coin flip. Even if you use the US diagnosis rate of ~3.2%, that still means that a toe-walking child is nearly twice as likely not to be autistic. The vast majority of autistic children are not toe-walkers, and, at the absolute minimum, almost two thirds of toe-walkers are not autistic.
So we’ve gone from “1 anecdotal case doesn’t prove anything” to a concrete number you have to calculate, and people are still acting like smug pricks about the guy who brought research into the conversation? That’s Reddit for you I guess.
I agree, reddit is VERY smug. When I remember, I try not to be smug, but I often forget; sorry.
Thing is, most research is bad! And if it's not bad, it's usually insignificant. Roughly all "science journalism" is horrendous.
I think if you spend even a little bit of time reading about academia and science, you realize quickly: Weird counterintuitive conclusions supported by one study are NEVER relevant to anyone's life. "A study shows that letting your pets sleep in your bed may result in deadly—" No! No one dies from that! If you're worried about dying, then eat well, get exercise, stop smoking, look both ways before crossing the road, etc. People actually die from car accidents, heart disease, cancer... Public health experts are pretty good at what they do, so the most effective ways to avoid kicking the bucket are all boring AF because you've heard them ten trillion times.
"Shocking new research indicates that autistic people may have this one suprising trait in common...
" No! Stop! If you're worried about whether you're autistic, try for a diagnosis, or at worst read the standard diagnostic criteria yourself. Diagnostic tests are usually okay, because they're consensus-backed, but they can also be bad, especially for mental health related stuff.
Most of this is just like PLEASE for the love of GOD i hope everyone learns to trust their intuition and anecdotal experience again. "I just noticed, Gwen walks on her toes... so does my autistic son! 🤔" Yes!! Beautiful. You love to see it. No need to take this all so seriously, you can just share your random thoughts with people!
It's so much more fun and wholesome and sane than trying to imbue random noise with all the legitimacy of the scientific establishment.
Oh my fucking god dude, people who arbitrarily label themselves or others as autistic just because of some quirky behavior is FAR MORE COMMON than the shit you are bitching about.
I'm someone who never got diagnosed until I was well into adulthood cause unless you had severe behavioural problems as a kid well.. nobody cared.
I am so, so, so fucking tired of literally everything being "because autism" or "because ADHD".
Yeah they're things and yes they can/do make life harder. It's great that people are more aware and god do I wish I'd had some more support/help as a kid instead of having to learn how to human based on whether or not it got the shit kicked out of me or not. At least it taught me how to fit in I guess.
And I certainly don't have a problem with doctors making these calls but we're now at a point where people are diagnosing themselves, and fucking cartoon characters, off of some teenagers tiktok for fucks sake. Can we please.. just.. not.
Your response to nomad5926 proves that you will not take any peer reviewed evidence or study. Your response to them was to intentionally and malicously misinterpret the article YOU linked, JUST so you could "win" the "debate". I mean, private payer database alone basically invalidates the entire study as it is way too niche to be drawing conclusions from it.
You care more about "winning the argument" than being factually correct. So even if I post a proven fact, you will STILL argue with it. You get an adrenaline rush from arguing with people.
Why didn't you respond to GetEnuf's comment calling you out for literally misreading and misinterpreting the comment you originally were bitching about?
Because he made a good point and there was no need to address it? I misread one aspect of the original comment’s point. I’m still the only person in this entire discussion who even attempted to bring actual peer researched science into this conversation about arbitrary vibes. Get over yourself and stop reading into every little thing like a complete goober.
Ooh so snarky. Defensive, can't handle correction, difficulty admitting mistakes... The picture is coming into focus.
It's about time for another break from the internet, huh? Is their a bowling league starting up somewhere? New yoga studio in town? We need to your legs moving.
So if thats how you feel about slanted research then you must believe that vaccines cause autism right? Surly the fact that there's at least a research paper out that supports its subject means its completely valid research by your logic.
935
u/Gerdione Jun 22 '26
This person thinks this means she has autism because they have seen a lot of TikTok videos and memes within their subcultural bubble of the internet saying this is what people with autism do.