forum Help writing a character with autism?
Started by @WriteOutofTime
tune

people_alt 11 followers

@sharkfinn_ey

ok so as an actual autistic person with a lot of autistic friends i'll try and give you advice till the best of my knowledge.
A lot of people with autism can't look people straight in the eyes for a longer time period. there probably has been a study for this, but most of my friends say it's giving them a lot of tension/stress.

quite often you'll find that autistic people are over sexual, or not busy with sex at all. they may seem prude and awkward around sex.
also, personal boundaries can be hard to understand. but just like most people, if you tell them and/or explain, they'll respect it.
also, a lot of autistic people are not comfortable with random touching, or touching at all. it's really important to always ask them before you touch, and keep asking.

autistic people may have 'hyper focusses' on subjects they like. for example, when i was around 8 i was obsessed with dinosaurs. I knew everything there was to know, and everything that had dinosaurs was amazing just because of the dino's.
they'll probably will keep talking about it, repeating things and talk really fast because they're so enthousiastic.

they may have trouble in school, because of all the pressure and all the information that's coming in. we don't only notice the teacher explaining. we also notice everything around us. doors opening in the classroom down the hall, someone tapping their foot, clicking of pens… everything. this often gives us sensory overloads and may end in anger or crying.
we often see details before we see the bigger picture.
we may have trouble with loud noises or bright light.
there are often 'safe objects', like a hat or bracelet. this gives a feeling of reassurement and safety.

social anxiety often comes with autism, so we may have trouble making friends, going out, talking to strangers etc etc.

we can be highly intelligent, but there are different sorts of autism. one form for example is known for knowledge of calculus, while another form is known for a broad knowledge about languages. some very famous autistic people are albert einstein, mozart, tim burton and andy warhol.

there is so much more that i can't think of right now, but i hope this helps enough. please don't make every autistic character weird, or depressed or introverted. we're not, we can be noisy and outgoing. sometimes people don't even notice we're autistic.
everything differs from person to person, so steriotypes don't always apply.

@@Reiko

I have a sister who's on the lower autism spectrum, and here's what I know:

When talking to people, she can't pick up the clues on their face (expressions), so she doesn't realize when she's hurting someone, making them mad, etc. It can also be a problem when she's trying to stay out of the drama.

Definitely can't sit still for a long time. Kind of blunt, but not overly so.