Unusual autism traits? High coordination and athleticism but low situational awareness, fear of

[Jumpback]

Think this is why we have a hard time getting diagnosed. We present with so many contradictions that MD's can't quite wrap us up neatly in a clearly defined box.

This first professional race car driver thinks autism helps him focus and the other seems to be saying something along the same lines.

At times, it almost seems like they put opposing traits together into one giant category which can make things very complicated or something

 

[Pieplup]

I don't think so You only need like 2/4 of the major requirements and secondly. If I'm the best person at a motor skill then struggle majorly with the rest of the motor skills not exactly suprassing that one

 

[Pieplup]

Yeah, John Howard is a good example of that and I think I mentioned him before on this forum. Jason McElwain is another example if anyone wants to look that up.

I don't think having or not having athletic ability is tied to the spectrum in any way. It's a skill that you develop and hone over time with practice and (barring any limitations) I don't see a reason why anyone on the spectrum can't be good at it. I suck at it, but that's mostly due to not practicing those things more than anything else.

It seems like there are things that other people acn do better than me. My motor control is limited and erratic compared to other peoples. So at the HIGHEST level dyspraxia will catch up sooner or later.

 

[Progster]

The problems with these lists of traits is that they list traits that autistic people can have, or have been found to have, but people often take it to mean that an autistic person must have them. In reality, no one autistic person will have all the traits listed in the books, even more severely affected people. Especially with things like muscle coordination, areas where one is affected can be very specific: I can tie my shoe laces, but have awful handwriting. I can play tennis, but I can't dance (not well). I can swim the backstroke and front crawl, but not butterfly or breaststroke.

 

[Jumpback]

@Jumpback , I was in my high school cross-country team & have been an avid bicyclist. Dis-coordination is not a requirement for an ASD1 dx. It is more common in ASD2s & 3s, however.

(I never really connected to team sports, however.)

Sports I have tried with multiple other participants tended to have become overwhelming for me in a way, like it was too close to multitasking to keep track of what everyone else was doing.

I especially hated when there were pickup basketball games where teams all kept their shirts on (as opposed to shirts and skins), because I would forget who was on my team

But I never tried them for very long to get more comfortable

 

[Els]

I'm very good at anything that involves precision and focus (from handwritting to play basketball, which implies that you have a precise target). I am extremely precise and can dwell a lot in details.
I'm very, very, very disastreous at dancing and anything that's not with a visible goal or marked/targetable around me or implies fast coordination and a complicated set of movements, even more if it's fast. I also have no idea what I look like nor how mouvements look like. It's completely imprecise, I don't understand it. I have a very poor spatialization as well, don't even know my left and right sides. Not only I don't know which side is which, but if I see someone moving his left hand, I'll move my right hand because I have no understanding why it's the opposite side. It doesn't make any sense to me. I'm lost extremely easily, I have issues with doing the right movements + issues with timing + coordinating movements when it implies my whole body. It's completely uncoordinated, I'm very, very, very clumsy. I don't know how to move. Unless I have a precise goal to reach (target something for example), chances are I won't know how to move my body at all and will be very poorly coordinated.
The smaller things are (for example handwritting, being precise for something), the best I'll be at because I'll have to focus on less things and coordinate less parts of my body together.
I used to practice juggling and other circus stuffs like hula hoop and gymnastic figures in order to help myself understand coordination better. I'm very bad at those kind of stuffs and I don't like being bad at something, I like challenges.

 

[Giraffes]

I agree that the different presentations within N/D people make it complex and tricky for N/T individuals to 'get a hold' on a person who's varied, and different, i know N/D people who excel at computers, brilliant at driving, amazing creativity. Myself i am a good jogger, enjoy cycling and due to my obsessive nature am 'focussed (latest 'thing' is Pilates) and keen to improve' at these activities.At school i was not great at team sports..... oh yes in Netball i would on a regular basis pass the ball to the opposing team!!! resulting in bullying and humiliation, so varied varied varied.

 

[Pieplup]

I agree that the different presentations within N/D people make it complex and tricky for N/T individuals to 'get a hold' on a person who's varied, and different, i know N/D people who excel at computers, brilliant at driving, amazing creativity. Myself i am a good jogger, enjoy cycling and due to my obsessive nature am 'focussed (latest 'thing' is Pilates) and keen to improve' at these activities.At school i was not great at team sports..... oh yes in Netball i would on a regular basis pass the ball to the opposing team!!! resulting in bullying and humiliation, so varied varied varied.

why were you on the team?

 

[Giraffes]

Wing Defence, so much going on, to many rules to understand and retain i used to dread 'team picking' as i was always one of the last to be picked.

 

[Pieplup]

Wing Defence, so much going on, to many rules to understand and retain i used to dread 'team picking' as i was always one of the last to be picked.

Wing Defense?

 

[Els]

I agree that the different presentations within N/D people make it complex and tricky for N/T individuals to 'get a hold' on a person who's varied, and different, i know N/D people who excel at computers, brilliant at driving, amazing creativity. Myself i am a good jogger, enjoy cycling and due to my obsessive nature am 'focussed (latest 'thing' is Pilates) and keen to improve' at these activities.At school i was not great at team sports..... oh yes in Netball i would on a regular basis pass the ball to the opposing team!!! resulting in bullying and humiliation, so varied varied varied.

I was the last choice in sport teams as well. I hope they stopped this process of choosing the people going in the teams where there are 2 "chiefs" choosing the others, it was humiliating.

 

[Giraffes]

Wing defence is mid field so responsible for stopping/blocking the 'attack' position and passing to other team members so they can shoot into the net.

 

[The Q]

I definitely relate to executive function and anxiety aspects you are dealing with.
Coordination for me is very dependent on the task. I struggle most when my body is stationary but my focus needs to act as if I'm still moving--for example (as you already know!) driving, and also video games! I get horribly disoriented and my coordination suffers.
However for most things I am either average or above average in dexterity. I love exercise though I don't do it enough. In high school I was on the swim team and made city championship long distance. Most of what I do in visual art requires fine dexterity. With hand-eye coordination for catching and reacting to sudden surprises, I would say I'm nothing special, depends on how present I am that day. As you say, what we consider coordination has many factors at work, both in orienting yourself, reaction time, acuity, and multitasking. Different places to excel in or have weakness in.

 

[SusanLR]

No one ever wanted me on their team either.
Athletics was not my thing. Couldn't hit a softball to save me.
Anything with eye hand coordination it seems.

Other things that involved strength was OK. Like swimming, weights and running.
Also good at riding a bike and doing tricks with one.
I got involved with martial arts for a while, but, never followed through.

I am absolutely lost socially but I rarely think about it. My unusual feature is that I am really good with women and women like me.

I never lacked for s*x until I married an asexual woman which is fine by me.

This is a current situation I'm finding perplexing with a man I am seeing.
He is Aspie and is lost socially, yet has always been good with the ladies, they like his looks,
(so do I), and never lacked for a partner either.
We really like each other and have even said I love you's. But, he's been used to a full s*x life
and I'm asexual.
How do the two ever agree?

 

[BenderRodriguez]

Hmm... I think there are more factors at play than being on the spectrum here.

I'm athletic too, with good fine motor skills, reflexes and coordination. So is my son and we both practice martial arts.

BUT, some of it, especially coordination was definitely an acquired skill for both of us: dance classes and some sports are definitely very good for developing coordination, balance, good posture and teaching you how to move the upper and lower side of your body independently of each other.

Neither of us likes or participates in any team sports though.

And another but: if I'm very stressed or overwhelmed, all that goes out the window and I start bumping into things, dropping them, it's like that part of my brain shuts down completely and it's extremely annoying.

 

[Jumpback]

I'm very good at anything that involves precision and focus (from handwritting to play basketball, which implies that you have a precise target). I am extremely precise and can dwell a lot in details.
I'm very, very, very disastreous at dancing and anything that's not with a visible goal or marked/targetable around me or implies fast coordination and a complicated set of movements, even more if it's fast.

I might be somewhat the opposite, where I have good general coordination even at high rates of speed, but I can’t do precision things very well.

Like what I would do when playing 2 on 2 or 3 on 3 basketball was look for a teammate who can stand and shoot really well because I am bad at that. It would be hard for people to stop me from getting to basket, and even at high speed I could switch hands in the air or stop quickly or I could do spin moves. So I’d be a ball hog a couple times until both defenders started trying to keep me from shooting layups or short shots, then I would start passing to the open shooter. Actually, the NBA has moved more and more to this strategy...surrounding a couple people who are good at getting to the rim with a lot of 3 point shooters.

But like calligraphy or something like threading a needle or all kinds of precise delicate tasks, I am pretty bad at, and they tend to make me a nervous wreck to try.

I don’t know how good of a dancer I am, but I can maintain rhythm at high rates of speed. I used to like it when I’d go to clubs and they’d play things really fast, because I could keep up better than others.

But, again, anything careful and delicate like supergluing delicate antiques back together (sometimes after I managed to break them), I would give to my ex-girlfriend to do

 

[Jumpback]

I definitely relate to executive function and anxiety aspects you are dealing with.
Coordination for me is very dependent on the task. I struggle most when my body is stationary but my focus needs to act as if I'm still moving--for example (as you already know!) driving, and also video games! I get horribly disoriented and my coordination suffers.
However for most things I am either average or above average in dexterity. I love exercise though I don't do it enough. In high school I was on the swim team and made city championship long distance. Most of what I do in visual art requires fine dexterity. With hand-eye coordination for catching and reacting to sudden surprises, I would say I'm nothing special, depends on how present I am that day. As you say, what we consider coordination has many factors at work, both in orienting yourself, reaction time, acuity, and multitasking. Different places to excel in or have weakness in.

Have you played musical instruments? I used to go to this music group thing where everyone got together once a week to play mostly guitar based music. I was mainly just the guy who found the equipment since I was buying and selling things at the time, but I would sing and try to play instruments. I noticed a little of what you are saying in maybe a slightly different way, where I am not very good at guitar, but I am sort of a natural at drums, but when I would play drums I would be very animated. Like it was easier to keep the rhythm if my whole body was moving with it.

Driving in familiar areas, especially in light traffic and trying to drive on unfamiliar highways in heavy traffic are like totally different things to me. Like if you get your drivers license, you don’t have to drive downtown or on highways during rush hour

I don’t know how semi-truck drivers and so on regularly manage dealing with all the things going on around them with huge vehicles, I’d be more comfortable driving very fast by myself on racetrack than figuring out what lane I am supposed to be in on a busy highway. I mean it’s weird, I would turn late night pizza delivery into sort of race track and have fun with this, but unfamiliar highways or one way streets in the city during rush hour when I don’t know where I am going and the only thing keeping me from anxiety attacks is gps telling me what to do.

Like if I can focus on the car and the road I am great, but focusing on hard to see signs and which lane to be in and all the other traffic and so on and it’s like too many things

But my issues are definitely around the entire thing about “executive functioning”, so I am sure that I am different from others on the spectrum about what is hard and what isn’t.

 

[Jumpback]

Hmm... I think there are more factors at play than being on the spectrum here.

I'm athletic too, with good fine motor skills, reflexes and coordination. So is my son and we both practice martial arts.

BUT, some of it, especially coordination was definitely an acquired skill for both of us: dance classes and some sports are definitely very good for developing coordination, balance, good posture and teaching you how to move the upper and lower side of your body independently of each other.

Neither of us likes or participates in any team sports though.

And another but: if I'm very stressed or overwhelmed, all that goes out the window and I start bumping into things, dropping them, it's like that part of my brain shuts down completely and it's extremely annoying.

Things like core strength and muscle memory learning to separate independent movements definitely can be developed or learned.

But did you see the couple videos I posted about the autistic spectrum martial artists, they are actually the best at their things?

I am not sure that autism spectrum isn’t at play. Like back in my early 20s I’d go to dance clubs and if they started playing music faster and faster, I might be the only one still keeping rhythm after others couldn’t.

For whatever reason, I seem to be much more towards the really good or really bad at things extremes than most people. I wonder if because my executive function doesn’t work right it actually frees up other things

Though I have noticed that there are people on here who tend towards opposite issues, where they are very skilled at things like fine art, which I am terrible at, but lack large muscle movement coordination which I seem to have.

 

[SDRSpark]

You sound a lot like me, with some variation.

I'm TERRIBLE at team sports. However I tend to excel at solo sports. I did martial arts as a teen, and now I enjoy rock climbing.

I also walk into doors, so somehow my grace and agility on a cliff face doesn't translate to everyday life.

 

[Jumpback]

You sound a lot like me, with some variation.

I'm TERRIBLE at team sports. However I tend to excel at solo sports. I did martial arts as a teen, and now I enjoy rock climbing.

I also walk into doors, so somehow my grace and agility on a cliff face doesn't translate to everyday life.

Skimming through the videos I posted of autistic spectrum athletes, the common thing I noticed is that they seem to have the ability to have extreme focus on whatever they are doing.

I can see that with me, but with me it’s like if there is just one thing I am focusing on I am good at it, but if there are too many things to focus on it doesn’t work.

It’s almost like having kind of a one track mind that can focus on one thing might actually help in individual things, but team sports tend to require things like “court awareness” which require a very broad idea of what everyone is doing