Be real… how many of these do you do? 👀 For my deep divers - I see youuu!!! 👇 Crompton, C. J., Ropar, D., Evans-Williams, C. V., Flynn, E. G., & Fletcher-Watson, S. (2020). Autistic peer-to-peer information transfer is highly effective. Autism, 24(7), 1704–1712. Heasman, B., & Gillespie, A. (2018). Perspective-taking is two-sided, misunderstandings between people with Asperger’s syndrome and their family members. Autism, 22(6), 740–750. de Marchena, A., & Eigsti, I. M. (2010). Conversational gestures in autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 40(5), 579–592. Paul, R., Augustyn, A., Klin, A., & Volkmar, F. R. (2005). Perception and production of prosody by speakers with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 35(2), 205–220. Senju, A., & Johnson, M. H. (2009). The eye contact effect, mechanisms and development. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(3), 127–134. Tanaka, J. W., & Sung, A. (2016). The “eye avoidance” hypothesis of autism face processing. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 46(5), 1538–1552. Prizant, B. M., & Duchan, J. F. (1981). The functions of immediate and delayed echolalia in autistic children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 46(3), 241–249. Stiegler, L. N. (2015). Examining the echolalia literature, where do speech-language pathologists stand? American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 24(4), 750–762. Kapp, S. K., Gillespie-Lynch, K., Sherman, L. E., & Hutman, T. (2013). Deficit, difference, or both? Autism and neurodiversity. Developmental Psychology, 49(1), 59–71. 🧠 As always, what I share is based on my experience as an autistic speech pathologist working in autism assessment, the lived experiences of the autistic community, and what I’ve seen across 8 years of assessment work. These insights reflect common themes I’ve observed in clinical settings, assessment conversations, and client storytelling. It may not apply to everyone, and research is still catching up on a lot of this. This content is for general education and shared understanding, it is not clinical advice or a diagnostic service.

Here are five less commonly talked about clues that you could be autistic. Hi, I'm Dasha, I'm an autistic autism assessor and I don't gate key. I'm here to share all the things with you so that you can self-identify as autistic or prepare for formal assessment. Number one, your natural response in conversation is to share your own relevant experience rather than asking endless polite questions. That is called reciprocal disclosure or I prefer to call anecdotal sharing. And it is something that autistic folk naturally do. They look something like this. I went to the Blue Duck Cafe this weekend, it was really nice. Oh my goodness, I went there last weekend, I loved their croissants. Number two, you jump in enthusiastically when someone is talking. Other people might call this interrupting but really we know that you are keen to show that you are so into whatever it is that they're saying. I prefer to call it coatering, coatering, talking at the same time. Number three, you use quotes from media, from movies, shows. Books, social media, in conversation where it feels relevant. A lot of the time that is when it's just down right hilarious, it just fits so well. This is actually called delayed echelalio or sometimes scripting. It is very common in the autistic community and really not that common outside of it. An example for my friends, lovers. If someone's asking you if you're okay on repeat, you might respond with "I'm fine, I don't know why my voice is doing that because really I'm fine." If you know you know, number four, you think about eye contact. That's not a neurotypical thing to do. That's a kind of short and sweet one. Number five, you need a loan time to recharge. Neurotypical people can go quite some time without a loan time and be just dandy. Autistic people commonly need this a lot more. Now before you get all, I'm just an introvert on me. Yes, introverts are a thing, introverts that also meet all of the criteria for autism are probably just autistic. Food for thought, my friend. And ADHD is, yes, there's some overlap but not as much as you think. Just hit follow. I will share with you the difference between ADHD is an autistic folk when it comes to this stuff in another video. So make sure not to miss out on that one. For my research lovers and deep divers, I will include some goodies below for you to dive into. Also, if you do love researching, the bejonkers out of something. And that's a cute little clue in itself. All right, see you in the next bit. Oh, PS, yes, these are all social and communication things. You know why? Because that is the only mandatory element of the DSM-5 criteria for autism. Know the other stuff, then through staff, the routine staff, the interest staff, all of that stuff. You only need two out of the four of those to get a diagnosis. But you need all three of the social things to be identified as autistic formally. Why do we not talk about this as much as we talk about say the sensory stuff? I don't know, I don't get it. But yes, I'm talking about it and I'm not gay keeping, so see you soon.