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Can someone with Aspergers be good at reading people?

I haven’t read through all replies but I think I’ve definitely taught myself in a way, every conversation i listen to feels like I can learn from it.
I analyse peoples body language and everything they say so i can try to break down in my head what’s going on and i can get really really focused on figuring it out.
Psychology is a huge huge interest for me and it’s just become my daily life, i think this is why i have never looked into being on the spectrum before because i thought i understood social things
But after thoroughly thinking about it I realised these aren’t natural things to me.
If I’m having a “conversation” with someone it’s mostly always them talking but if i do reply, it’ll be with a question.. because in my time of researching people skills i learnt that’s a way to make people think you care and are listening. Obviously it doesn’t make a conversation more enjoyable for ME.. but any way to make them see me as “normal”
 
It's interesting to see that many of you have similar feelings and experiences!

I always thought it was a talent I was born with, that my built-in understanding of how people and social interactions work was above average due to genetics. If it's a skill that I've acquired to compensate for missing instinctual behavior, that's pretty cool.

Yes, the amount of processing power is the most destructive force in my life, and I'm always exhausted on the verge of collapse, but it's helpful to understand what's behind it. It's an achievement that I (and the rest of you) should be proud of, and that's comforting when I lie in the dark with a migraine.
 
You don't necessarily need to be very good at reading facial expressions and body language to understand people. You can read them by their words and actions too, if you wanna try to understand people at your work or school, analyze them when they are talking with other people, not with you. When you are talking to them yourself you are most likely putting all your effort in trying to not look completely social inept (masking) to be getting an idea of what makes their clock tick. Eventually you will recognize the patterns. Reading about psychology also helps.
 
Heck yes! I can read people like a penny dreadful; I just can't "do" what they do. One of the reasons female autists are so under-diagnosed is because we read people so well. As in, we mask so well. So yes, to answer your question, someone with autism absolutely can read people well.
 
MayBerry said:
Everything I have heard or read about Autism/Aspergers tells me there's "one" symptom that is universal: the inability to understand social norms, emotional reactions and body language/expressions.

I'm not sure how to phrase the questions properly without writing a wall of text, so please ask if you're confused about what I mean.

Is it possible for a person with Aspergers to have behavioral analysis as an interest? To be better than most neurotypical people in reading and predicting behavior and feelings? Excelling in professions like psychiatry, for instance?
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Yes! This has been such a great forum to read because I am recently diagnosed but also am able to read people really well. I have also always been an observer and will read people and situations for as long as I possibly can before saying anything so that could very likely be why. Tony Attwood also talks about how women and girls with autism have a 6th sense for understanding others. He said that we can often just feel the feelings of others and that is how we are able to navigate the social world. I believe this is true for me. I always feel that someone is upset. I don't see that they are upset.
 
MayBerry said:
The reason I'm asking is because I feel like I fit every other "criteria," but I am extremely good at reading people and figuring out how they work, why they think the way they do, etc. To the point of some people being unnerved by it.

I was diagnosed at 24 with avoidant personality disorder, dependent personality disorder, and obsessive compulsive personality. I had been seeing a psychiatrist for 10 years at that point due to anxiety/depression/eating disorder, and he was not eager to diagnose me, but I needed one to qualify for the benefits I was entitled to. Those 3 were the closest he could get, because I'm a difficult case. I asked him about Asperger's once, and he said he had never thought of me in connection to that. I wasn't "weird" enough.

I was satisfied with my diagnosis even though they didn't cover some of my biggest issues. But yesterday I was doing some research on ADHD for a family member, and I watched a video about the differences between ADHD and Autism. I just started crying for no reason, then I realized it was because the Autism parts were so powerful to hear.



Please skip if you don't want to hear about my symptoms:

I can't stand small talk; I'm bored by it, and I never remember to ask people questions in return. It triggers my anxiety just thinking about it.

I've always been different. My honesty about myself and my issues, as well as my tolerance of other people, seems to make everyone trust me with their problems and use me as their personal hobby-psychiatrist. When they do, I get really interested and it's as if I take a step back and distance myself from the emotional side somehow. I'm also extremely empathetic and cry easily when I see people suffer, except when I analyze them.

My life goes in 6-9 month cycles. I eat the same 3 things every single day, and after months I get bored and change out one of them, which I then eat for the next 6 months. I play video games for almost a year, then stop completely and crochet for the next 6 months, before I go on to the next of my handful of hobbies. When I'm focused on a hobby, I tend to spend most of my waking hours on it. I'm disabled and live alone (with assistance), so I don't have anything disturbing me.

If I spend a lot of time with someone for a while, I eventually crash and completely cut them out of my life for several months. Maybe a text message here and there, and I have learned to tell them that I have crashed, but it takes extraordinary amounts of energy to even read their messages to me.


If you actually read that, thank you very much!
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Autistic people who read fiction books all of their lives into adulthood are extremely good at reading people and figuring out how they work, why they think the way they do, etc. They can be highly uncannily intuitive.

I cannot comment on the psychiatric stuff due to lack of knowledge.

Hugs that you started crying for no reason, then realized it was because the Autism parts were so powerful to hear. I take it that this means the autistic traits resonate with you.

Not liking small talk is autism, I spent so much of my life masking that I convinced myself I liked small talk as it "could make me popular" when in reality, I couldn't give a banana what most people think of stuff.

You sound a really nice person.

The love of solitude is an aspie thing and the cyclic behaviour could be seen as a trait but I am not a clinician.

I did read it, no need to thank me, just wish I knew more of what to say.
 
(Alright, one more.)
Reading People...
full
 
I think analyzing people like a psychologist (a good one, not someone who thinks pills are as accurate as talk therapy) is different from talking to people normally. People let you have a lot more guesses, they tell you how they think from the start, and you’re in a position of power so they won’t just go “I don’t respect you because I don’t want to lol” unless things go bad.
 
MayBerry said:
Everything I have heard or read about Autism/Aspergers tells me there's "one" symptom that is universal: the inability to understand social norms, emotional reactions and body language/expressions.

I'm not sure how to phrase the questions properly without writing a wall of text, so please ask if you're confused about what I mean.

Is it possible for a person with Aspergers to have behavioral analysis as an interest? To be better than most neurotypical people in reading and predicting behavior and feelings? Excelling in professions like psychiatry, for instance?
Click to expand...

Possible? Absolutely! Many of us resort to a study of NT behaviour and such out of sheer self defense! It becomes a survival mechanism. Are any of us good at it? Tougher question. Some, maybe. I don't know enough autistics to answer that question.

Here's something that I've been discovering lately. All my years at University, and all my negotiating with professors, and with the so-called (long story) support persons I dealt with (whom I usually had to teach about autism, as they usually knew nothing, and I required a contradictory approach to what they were trained. Another long story. For another post, someday, maybe.), and all the rest, and with my autism specialist(s), and all my involvement with self advocacy seems to have lead me to have developed my emotional intelligence, (I think, I need to read up on the concept more) rather than my 'NT emulation' skills, or what people ordinarily think of when they think of 'social skills'.

I sure as hell didn't spend any time trying to emulate NT social behaviour, or any of that other stuff that people always say so many autistics spend so much time doing! In fact, I was quite averse to any of that **** for a long time!!! Still sort of am, but not exposed to it anymore. Part of the benefits of being older. Part of the benefits of not needing to interact with much of anybody. If we're going to involve categorizations, I was told, long ago (by other autistics) that I fell into the category of 'aloof' autistics. (forget the rest of the categorization name. Possibly because I've been posting for hours, and have worn out my language production capacity, and also because it's late, and I need to go to bed.)
 
WolfSpirit said:
Possible? Absolutely! Many of us resort to a study of NT behaviour and such out of sheer self defense! It becomes a survival mechanism. Are any of us good at it? Tougher question. Some, maybe. I don't know enough autistics to answer that question.

Here's something that I've been discovering lately. All my years at University, and all my negotiating with professors, and with the so-called (long story) support persons I dealt with (whom I usually had to teach about autism, as they usually knew nothing, and I required a contradictory approach to what they were trained. Another long story. For another post, someday, maybe.), and all the rest, and with my autism specialist(s), and all my involvement with self advocacy seems to have lead me to have developed my emotional intelligence, (I think, I need to read up on the concept more) rather than my 'NT emulation' skills, or what people ordinarily think of when they think of 'social skills'.

I sure as hell didn't spend any time trying to emulate NT social behaviour, or any of that other stuff that people always say so many autistics spend so much time doing! In fact, I was quite averse to any of that **** for a long time!!! Still sort of am, but not exposed to it anymore. Part of the benefits of being older. Part of the benefits of not needing to interact with much of anybody. If we're going to involve categorizations, I was told, long ago (by other autistics) that I fell into the category of 'aloof' autistics. (forget the rest of the categorization name. Possibly because I've been posting for hours, and have worn out my language production capacity, and also because it's late, and I need to go to bed.)
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!! What you wrote is similar to what I feel. I don't feel I'm doing "NT emulation skills". It was more like something I felt in earlier years. Nowadays it just feels like I'm learning and as you said, developing my emotional inteligence. Which is extremely helpful to reduce anxiety levels.
 
I've been thinking more about this, and the whole subject of "learning social skills" and "teaching social skills to autistics" concept. ... and I've been comparing my experiences and preferences/aversions with what I've heard other autistics say about their own experiences (self-inflicted and externally so). I've been starting to realize that despite my aversions to any attempt to 'teach me to interact' or 'be appropriate', or anything, I may have learned many social skills without really realizing it or despite myself. Including some even my NT family don't have. (many, actually).

When I think about both how this happened, and why this happened, I realize a couple of things: 1. It took people who accepted me for me, and for being different, and who started from there. They were able to explain to me what I didn't know, and/or suggest ways for me to get what I needed from other people I knew less well, (or tell me what they needed from me), without criticizing or demeaning me for not knowing it. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how they did that, but I guess what I'm mostly saying, is they started with respect. When people weren't trying to teach me from the perspective of "you've got this wrong', but rather "here's how to get better responses and results from people", and "I value as a person just the way you are", then I didn't have the same resistance and objections to it that I had from the others, and was totally willing to learn.

2. The social skills and emotional intelligence I've learned came in the context of specific relationships that were meaningful to me, and so I was motivated to relate those people better, which meant listening and learning what I needed to do in order to do that. It just so happened that it also related to my interactions with other people too. I think that learning these skills in the context of self-advocacy and University, and adult independence skills (as I was living independently at this time. Well, most of it.) made a big difference. I guess what I'm saying is that there was a meaningful purpose to it all, specific enough to be meaningful to me, that made it not seem so much like 'learning social skills', but 'achieving the accommodations I need for this class, or that class, or... this paper, or, getting necessary living support from this person, or... etc."
 
I have always been good at reading people, which is why I avoid crowds if Temple Grandin can read animals why can many of us not read fellow humans.
 
Not the way Neurotypicals do ,but if you have a brain injury ,you could resemble autism for some aspects, but be able to read intention
 
No brain damage here, any hypothesis can be easily falsified with contrary evidence, key word is high functioning can easily be falsified. He definitely is not brain damaged, had the ability to read people before stroke. All stroke has done is made his autism more intense.
 
Here's my take on this.

I was born wired and obsessed with behavior analysis. As a kid, I had to figure out social things, but I couldn't, so I sat back and observed and learned. Now, I can read people pretty well, predict behavior and emotional responses, but I STILL can't engage with humans in a therapeutic way. I can analyze, evaluate, test, observe, but I can never be the therapist I wanted to be. So, I took my years of studying stress and trauma psych, animal behavior, etc and switched to animals. I rehabilitate traumatized dogs and love using horses to teach people how to navigate relationships. Since I can't do the people-part well, I focus on the animals and interpreting their expressions for the humans, and humans take it from there.

I read/heard somewhere that about 40% of mental health professionals are on the Spectrum. It makes sense to me, and I wish I could be one of them. Maybe if I can find a good NT partner, I can figure out how to make a living doing what I do (its very specific, very niche). In the meantime, I'm STILL working on how to navigate meaningful relationships with humans (and failing miserably...nothing deeper than a good intellectual friendship).

Is it possible for an Aspie to be obsessed with behavior analysis?? Absolutely!! I know I am!
 
My ASD1 son picks out physiological details that I can't imagine (but he is a bio-med student). If a girl seems interested in him, he will notice that her pupils are getting dilated...!
 
Ronald Zeeman said:
I have always been good at reading people, which is why I avoid crowds if Temple Grandin can read animals why can many of us not read fellow humans.
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A lot of autistic people do not have cognitive empathy, the ability to see things from another persons perspective, to see their motivations, their mental state, what they might be planning et cetera.
My earlier post said that people who read fiction as children have a much better chance of the social skills because they were able to get into the minds of the characters.
Autistic people like myself, who never read fiction lack cognitive empathy, I lack the ability to see what all teary emotive‘s people may have and therefore I am easily tricked.
I also find it difficult to find the right words to say at the right time.
 
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