I recently watched a YouTube video by The Aspie World titled ASPERGERS symptoms in children: 5 ways YOU spot Autism, in which one trait of some people with Asperger Syndrome is said to be walking on their tiptoes, especially in their childhood and teenage years.
That video unearthed a part of my childhood I had completely forgotten about. I would walk around on my tiptoes a lot when I was a kid (up to when I was around 12 years old), albeit only without shoes on. I can distinctly remember how I was visiting the apartment of a colleague of my mother's, and he allowed me to take a look around if I wanted to.
So I did, as there were a lot of unique pieces of furniture and decoration to see. At some point, I heard my mom's colleague ask, "Do you take ballet lessons?"
I answered, "No, why?"
He replied, "Because you have been tip-toeing across the entire apartment."
Prompted by that I explained to him that it was a habit of mine and had nothing to do with ballet. I didn't think much about it, he probably didn't either. I doubt he even mentioned it to my mother.
This tiny memory came back to me as I watched Dan's video and there I sat, going something like
(Source: Chis Marie GIF - Chis Marie IDoThat - Discover & Share GIFs)
Being the kind of person that I am, I could not keep quiet about what I had just learned for very long. So I chose my mother as a victim to infodump on, mainly because I thought she would remember that I tiptoed quite a lot as a child.
However, I did not expect her reaction. She exclaimed, "No way!" and I guess because I had a confused look on my face she continued, "Your uncle did that all the time." She went on to explain how his tiptoeing would annoy my grandfather and how he even walked this way on the street wearing shoes, which would make his habit more pronounced than mine. I have read before that there is a hereditary component to autism; if more autistic traits could be identified in my family members, they could be taken as a hint towards autism in my family.
Furthermore, I talked to my co-worker—whom I get along with extremely well—about my constant tiptoeing as a child. Her eyes got bigger and bigger as I explained how my uncle did it as well and she then remarked, "I did that too!" That was the point at which I got extremely excited because I had made her do the AQ test before (I shall write a post about that in the future) and she scored a decent 30. Without disclosing my own score yet, I do strongly believe it could be one of the reasons we just 'click.'
However, she put a little disclaimer on it by adding how she is not sure whether she did it naturally, or was inspired by people she had seen on TV. Personally, I don't think she is on the spectrum, but she does share a few traits.
How about you guys? Did you walk on your tiptoes back in your childhood? Admittedly I am far from being an autism expert, but I was extremely surprised to hear about this as a relatively common trait of people on the spectrum since I had never seen it be mentioned before. I would love to know how common this is, let me know!
That video unearthed a part of my childhood I had completely forgotten about. I would walk around on my tiptoes a lot when I was a kid (up to when I was around 12 years old), albeit only without shoes on. I can distinctly remember how I was visiting the apartment of a colleague of my mother's, and he allowed me to take a look around if I wanted to.
So I did, as there were a lot of unique pieces of furniture and decoration to see. At some point, I heard my mom's colleague ask, "Do you take ballet lessons?"
I answered, "No, why?"
He replied, "Because you have been tip-toeing across the entire apartment."
Prompted by that I explained to him that it was a habit of mine and had nothing to do with ballet. I didn't think much about it, he probably didn't either. I doubt he even mentioned it to my mother.
This tiny memory came back to me as I watched Dan's video and there I sat, going something like
(Source: Chis Marie GIF - Chis Marie IDoThat - Discover & Share GIFs)
Being the kind of person that I am, I could not keep quiet about what I had just learned for very long. So I chose my mother as a victim to infodump on, mainly because I thought she would remember that I tiptoed quite a lot as a child.
However, I did not expect her reaction. She exclaimed, "No way!" and I guess because I had a confused look on my face she continued, "Your uncle did that all the time." She went on to explain how his tiptoeing would annoy my grandfather and how he even walked this way on the street wearing shoes, which would make his habit more pronounced than mine. I have read before that there is a hereditary component to autism; if more autistic traits could be identified in my family members, they could be taken as a hint towards autism in my family.
Furthermore, I talked to my co-worker—whom I get along with extremely well—about my constant tiptoeing as a child. Her eyes got bigger and bigger as I explained how my uncle did it as well and she then remarked, "I did that too!" That was the point at which I got extremely excited because I had made her do the AQ test before (I shall write a post about that in the future) and she scored a decent 30. Without disclosing my own score yet, I do strongly believe it could be one of the reasons we just 'click.'
However, she put a little disclaimer on it by adding how she is not sure whether she did it naturally, or was inspired by people she had seen on TV. Personally, I don't think she is on the spectrum, but she does share a few traits.
How about you guys? Did you walk on your tiptoes back in your childhood? Admittedly I am far from being an autism expert, but I was extremely surprised to hear about this as a relatively common trait of people on the spectrum since I had never seen it be mentioned before. I would love to know how common this is, let me know!
