Roughly speaking, in our brains have to reconcile the internal models of the world with predictions and what we receive through stimuli. Neurotypical people can do this without issues, disregarding either one. Autistic people basically are wired to pay way more attention to external stimuli no matter how small it is.
This sort of explanation makes the most sense, and can contextualize this as well. The gait trait is basically an optimization that comes from a higher sensory sensitivity and low value of "how should I be walking".
SketchySeaBeast · 1h ago
- toe-walking, walking on the balls of the feet
- in-toeing, walking with one or both feet turned inwards
- out-toeing, walking with one or both feet turned out.
I thought that toe walking was called out two decades ago when I was in university - I remember it being mentioned in a psych class. Otherwise, that kind of includes everyone who doesn't walk with feet straight, doesn't it?
Telemakhos · 57m ago
People should be careful with basing psychological stereotypes on gait, as there's already an extensive legacy framework of stereotypes based on gait—are these new stereotypes meaningfully different medical observations grounded in facts, or are they just more stereotypes? Literature on Native Americans, for example, often claims that they walk on the balls of the feet in distinction to "the Anglo," who walks on his heels. For example:
> Our sources say that Native Americans tended to land on the
ball of the foot (a "forefoot strike"), or flat-footed ("midfoot
strike"), rather than landing on the heel and rolling forward
("heel strike"). [0: 90]
> Our sources indicate that Native Americans commonly walked
with toes pointed straight ahead or turned slightly inward,
rather than turned outward. [0: 91]
I've pulled just one article here, but there's a huge trove of racial and ethnic gait stereotypes with all sorts of moral implications. It's important not to repeat that stereotyping when trying to address autism.
Your comment doesn’t really support its own premise well - you just say that we used to stereotype people and point out what some of those stereotypes were, but not why they’re radically incorrect. You sorta just pointed out that they exist.
I’m not of one opinion or the other, I just don’t see why it’s self evident that certain groups of people wouldn’t walk a certain way.
generalizations · 1h ago
Basically a measure of whether or not you make an effort to emulate your peers. If you naturally walk weird and don't care about fitting in, then....you're probably on the spectrum.
hx8 · 34m ago
That's one potential explanation for gait differences. It's also possible that muscle development plays a role, or motor control, or sensory feedback, or a confluence of factors.
I'd be particularly interested in seeing if these gait differences are limited to childhood, or if they persist into adulthood. It might simply be delaying a developmental step.
hungmung · 1h ago
Yeah at least a few kindergarten and elementary school teachers were watching out for toe walkers since at least around the mid-90's. Source: I know people.
nitwit005 · 1h ago
I also remember that, and asymmetric baby crawling. That was decades back.
I guess the real "news" is just that it made it into the DSM:
> Having an "odd gait" is now listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a supporting diagnostic feature of autism.
elric · 43m ago
Human locomation is surprisingly complex. Maybe not that surprising, what with roughly 20 bones and 30 muscles in a single foot. That doesn't even include the joints needed for motion and the muscles required to move your legs or swing your arms while you walk.
Allegedly some law enforcement uses gait analysis to identify and follow individual people on CCTV recordings. Gait has diagnostic value in some neurological conditions (like multiple sclerosis). Doesn't seem far fetched that a complex disorder like autism would also affect gait.
bluefirebrand · 1h ago
I suspect that there are signs of autism or other neurodivergences encoded in a lot of our body language, and we're really only starting to qualify what those behaviors are
But we also should be careful not to over-diagnose neurodivergence based on outward behavior. Not everyone who fidgets is ADHD
Yes, neurodivergence can only be diagnosed based on how you work on the inside. It is not possible to diagnose based on outside behavior as people can show symptoms very differently and can mask their symptoms.
And no, you obviously can not diagnose people based on how they walk. If anything it can only give you hints or be a fun thing to talk about.
> over-diagnose
Both autism are ADHD are vastly under-diagnosed especially in women and adults. The fear of over-diagnosis makes no sense.
There are very hard criteria for an diagnosis and it requires that every other explanation for the behavior is excluded before a diagnosis can be made. The reality it that it is a huge struggle for anyone with autism or ADHD to get any form of help or even diagnosis.
Medication for ADHD works extremely well. Not for everyone but for like 70% and that is insanely good. Still there is so much fearmongering against it. But anti-depressants that can have much more serious side-effects and don't even work that well? Yes, they giving them like they are candy. Insanity.
Struggle mentally in any shape or form? Oh, you must be depressed? What causes the depression? We will not dig deeper. Have your pills and be happy! But stimulants, no those are of the devil!
Not to say that some people don't have just depression but the double standard is infuriating and often undiagnosed neurodivergence causes depression.
gcau · 12m ago
>Both autism are ADHD are vastly under-diagnosed especially in women and adults.
How is this known or proven?
tibbar · 43m ago
I, too, walk funny. I distinctly remember an authority figure trying to teach me how to walk properly as an adolescent, and other people in my life occasionally comment on it. I guess I walk by swinging my legs from the top and placing my entire foot down evenly on the ground, which leads to very broad and shallow footprints on the beach. I am naturally a very slow walker and a bit unsteady.
sys32768 · 27m ago
It could also just be a sign of undiagnosed funnywalkism.
dkga · 1h ago
I can confirm this happens. Source: self
_def · 1h ago
same. Walking feels weird
hooverd · 24m ago
Maybe I'm just avoiding the worm.
msgodel · 1h ago
Huh. My last girlfriend told me I had "the gay walk" and never could figure out what she meant. I wonder if this is it.
EvanAnderson · 1h ago
I emailed and spoke on the phone w/ my wife for a over a month before we met face-to-face. She told me, years later, she anticipated I'd have a particular gait. When we finally met I did not disappoint. She has described it as an "effeminate" gait.
We recently moved into house with wood floors. I experience my daughter and wife's gaits in new way. Their footfalls have a distinct "thud-thud-thud" with the landing of their heels first, whereas mine are a lot lighter. My daughter definitely didn't inherit my gait, even if she did inherit some of my psychological and mental eccentricities.
FirmwareBurner · 1h ago
> I had "the gay walk"
Alright, that's enough HN for me today, I'm outie. Have a great evening y'all.
Weryj · 1h ago
Hey, I'm the innie, lets see what HN has today… oh my
kridsdale1 · 1h ago
You’re going to love today’s perk: a cake.
racedude · 12m ago
Same rofl
northhnbesthn · 1h ago
Upvoted for account profile description.
ltbarcly3 · 32m ago
Virtually everything about you is encoded in virtually everything you do. With enough intelligence and enough data, it's probably possible to determine with a high degree of accuracy what kind of mint you prefer (spearmint, peppermint, that other one) based on hearing you talk for 30s.
In a world with AI systems that can be trained in an unsupervised way against basically all the data we can collect, the amount of information that can be accurately predicted about you is probably proportional to the number of bits of observational data about you available to to the AI, and I would suspect there is a roughly logistic relationship between bits available and the % of information it can reliably guess.
The most autistic people I know wear sandals all year round. People laugh about sandals and socks but you're right -- shoes are evil! I'll take looking like a dork over having sore feet all the time.
hooverd · 25m ago
Germans, too
725686 · 59m ago
For some reason, I dislike seeing people that walk "funny". I am particularly disgusted by people that walk with their feet facing outward a little too much.
SketchySeaBeast · 5m ago
As a good Canadian my immediate instinct is to apologize for my duck-walking ways, but nah.
Roughly speaking, in our brains have to reconcile the internal models of the world with predictions and what we receive through stimuli. Neurotypical people can do this without issues, disregarding either one. Autistic people basically are wired to pay way more attention to external stimuli no matter how small it is.
This sort of explanation makes the most sense, and can contextualize this as well. The gait trait is basically an optimization that comes from a higher sensory sensitivity and low value of "how should I be walking".
- in-toeing, walking with one or both feet turned inwards
- out-toeing, walking with one or both feet turned out.
I thought that toe walking was called out two decades ago when I was in university - I remember it being mentioned in a psych class. Otherwise, that kind of includes everyone who doesn't walk with feet straight, doesn't it?
> Our sources say that Native Americans tended to land on the ball of the foot (a "forefoot strike"), or flat-footed ("midfoot strike"), rather than landing on the heel and rolling forward ("heel strike"). [0: 90]
> Our sources indicate that Native Americans commonly walked with toes pointed straight ahead or turned slightly inward, rather than turned outward. [0: 91]
I've pulled just one article here, but there's a huge trove of racial and ethnic gait stereotypes with all sorts of moral implications. It's important not to repeat that stereotyping when trying to address autism.
[0] Ranalli, B. 2019. "Thoreau's Indian Stride." The Concord Saunterer 27: 89-110. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45271429
I’m not of one opinion or the other, I just don’t see why it’s self evident that certain groups of people wouldn’t walk a certain way.
I'd be particularly interested in seeing if these gait differences are limited to childhood, or if they persist into adulthood. It might simply be delaying a developmental step.
I guess the real "news" is just that it made it into the DSM:
> Having an "odd gait" is now listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a supporting diagnostic feature of autism.
Allegedly some law enforcement uses gait analysis to identify and follow individual people on CCTV recordings. Gait has diagnostic value in some neurological conditions (like multiple sclerosis). Doesn't seem far fetched that a complex disorder like autism would also affect gait.
But we also should be careful not to over-diagnose neurodivergence based on outward behavior. Not everyone who fidgets is ADHD
> based on outward behavior
Yes, neurodivergence can only be diagnosed based on how you work on the inside. It is not possible to diagnose based on outside behavior as people can show symptoms very differently and can mask their symptoms.
And no, you obviously can not diagnose people based on how they walk. If anything it can only give you hints or be a fun thing to talk about.
> over-diagnose
Both autism are ADHD are vastly under-diagnosed especially in women and adults. The fear of over-diagnosis makes no sense.
There are very hard criteria for an diagnosis and it requires that every other explanation for the behavior is excluded before a diagnosis can be made. The reality it that it is a huge struggle for anyone with autism or ADHD to get any form of help or even diagnosis.
Medication for ADHD works extremely well. Not for everyone but for like 70% and that is insanely good. Still there is so much fearmongering against it. But anti-depressants that can have much more serious side-effects and don't even work that well? Yes, they giving them like they are candy. Insanity.
Struggle mentally in any shape or form? Oh, you must be depressed? What causes the depression? We will not dig deeper. Have your pills and be happy! But stimulants, no those are of the devil!
Not to say that some people don't have just depression but the double standard is infuriating and often undiagnosed neurodivergence causes depression.
How is this known or proven?
We recently moved into house with wood floors. I experience my daughter and wife's gaits in new way. Their footfalls have a distinct "thud-thud-thud" with the landing of their heels first, whereas mine are a lot lighter. My daughter definitely didn't inherit my gait, even if she did inherit some of my psychological and mental eccentricities.
Alright, that's enough HN for me today, I'm outie. Have a great evening y'all.
In a world with AI systems that can be trained in an unsupervised way against basically all the data we can collect, the amount of information that can be accurately predicted about you is probably proportional to the number of bits of observational data about you available to to the AI, and I would suspect there is a roughly logistic relationship between bits available and the % of information it can reliably guess.
Shoes are evil. Barefoot all the things.
I think I might be a bit autistic...