What To Look For In Photographs Of You As A Child
If anyone wants to pour scorn on that and tell me it proves nothing, SURE I KNOW THAT. It proves nothing, but it sure does look like a kid with autism by today's knowledge, and no they are not the only pictures, I have plenty more like that. I'll PM scans if anyone wants to challenge that.
Sorry I'm a little on the defensive around this joint today.
I'd love to see the the photo's , not to pour scorn but to compare.
I wouldn't mind sharing my images, but I haven't scanned them. Think rail-thin three-year-old on Christmas morning seemingly dumbfounded and confused by it all and staring at the only interesting thing or person in the room. As for the professional photos, well, let's just call it my trip down the rabbit hole. If you flip through the 12 images quickly, they are also a little (painfully) funny.
_________________
Diagnosed in 2015 with ASD Level 1 by the University of Utah Health Care Autism Spectrum Disorder Clinic using the ADOS-2 Module 4 assessment instrument [11/30] -- Screened in 2014 with ASD by using the University of Cambridge Autism Research Centre AQ (Adult) [43/50]; EQ-60 for adults [11/80]; FQ [43/135]; SQ (Adult) [130/150] self-reported screening inventories -- Assessed since 1978 with an estimated IQ [≈145] by several clinicians -- Contact on WrongPlanet.net by private message (PM)
Btw, my defensiveness in that other post was purely general, not aimed at the OP or you or anyone in this thread -- I just came back to this site after not caring to come here for a few days, and saw some stuff that seemed very pointed --- again.
Not a problem, for me, anyway. Thanks.
_________________
Diagnosed in 2015 with ASD Level 1 by the University of Utah Health Care Autism Spectrum Disorder Clinic using the ADOS-2 Module 4 assessment instrument [11/30] -- Screened in 2014 with ASD by using the University of Cambridge Autism Research Centre AQ (Adult) [43/50]; EQ-60 for adults [11/80]; FQ [43/135]; SQ (Adult) [130/150] self-reported screening inventories -- Assessed since 1978 with an estimated IQ [≈145] by several clinicians -- Contact on WrongPlanet.net by private message (PM)
You are most certainly NOT oblivious now, KK. You are one of the wisest Wrong Planetians around.
_________________
Diagnosed in 2015 with ASD Level 1 by the University of Utah Health Care Autism Spectrum Disorder Clinic using the ADOS-2 Module 4 assessment instrument [11/30] -- Screened in 2014 with ASD by using the University of Cambridge Autism Research Centre AQ (Adult) [43/50]; EQ-60 for adults [11/80]; FQ [43/135]; SQ (Adult) [130/150] self-reported screening inventories -- Assessed since 1978 with an estimated IQ [≈145] by several clinicians -- Contact on WrongPlanet.net by private message (PM)
btbnnyr
Veteran
Joined: 18 May 2011
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,359
Location: Lost Angleles Carmen Santiago
I don't think you can get much from this.
Photos are too static to tell much about autistic traits.
Most autistic children who look normal physically look normal in photos.
_________________
Drain and plane and grain and blain your brain, and then again,
Propane and butane out of the gas main, your blain shall sustain!
BirdInFlight
Veteran
Joined: 8 Jun 2013
Age: 62
Gender: Female
Posts: 4,501
Location: If not here, then where?
@ btbnnyr -- I think it's not so much physical appearance that's the thing, more that physical facial expressions or postures may convey things. For example, if there's a group photo, like a family picture, and everyone is smiling and with their arms around the next person in the shot, but there's one child who is leaning away from the others, looking away from the camera, looking uncomfortable.
Sure it may just be something else in that moment, but the general idea is if enough of these old photos show a behavior, it can be helpful to a diagnostician even though they can't base their diagnosis heavily on merely what they notice in the pictures, it would go without saying.
Or there is a series of pictures that show a progression of some kind. Video or old home movie footage can provide a more dynamic display of someone actions, reactions, any physical discomfort.
The people looking at these pictures or video would of course have to have the ability to interpret body language and various emotions in facial expressions, but then, if they are qualified to assess and diagnose, they will probably be able to see these things.
Both my therapist years ago and my diagnostician more recently actually asked to see old family photos I have, and they both told me the photos were revealing and useful to them.
So it's not unheard of that this can be the case.
I had both photographic and video evidence.
In practically every photo my eyes look strange.
They look like they've been painted on (btw, this hasn't improved much - which is why I hate photos where I'm looking at the camera)
In the video evidence, taken at a family wedding when I was around 13, I am obviously stimming (flapping my hands and clapping - which I got chastised for afterward - apparently I 'ruined' the wedding video).
_________________
It's like I'm sleepwalking
Mom and dad were good at getting to pose for pictures, so there were not to many candid moments they captured, the ones they did get tended to show me with a gaping jaw and a blank look on my face. My grandma got a photo of me with toys lined up on a table. Another thing I noticed is that the overwhelming majority of my childhood photos depict me alone. I can count on one hand the number of pictures I have that show me with kids other than cousins. There could have been more opportunities, but mom was always leary of taking me out for fear of me melting down. A fourth thing that photos depict for me is that whenever I was in the house, I tended to be barefoot or wearing some kind of plush slippers because shoes and socks were always difficult for me to manage.
And speaking of shoes... photos show that I was wearing shoes with velcro straps until I was 5th grade thanks to motor dyspraxia.
_________________
I live my life to prove wrong those who said I couldn't make it in life...
+1 about the lights. In my childhood pictures I am often looking away or shutting my eyes, but this is entirely about the flashlights. I have no idea how I would have appeared in photos if I'd grown up in the era of mobile cameras. As things were, I developed a pavlovian fear of cameras - and I was very aware that I looked strange in the pictures, which caused anxiety every time someone brought out a camera, which in addition to the flash made me look even more uncomfortable.
In the pictures that were taken outdoors in natural light, and spontaneously, I look pretty normal, I think.
_________________
I sometimes leave conversations and return after a long time. I am sorry about it, but I need a lot of time to think about it when I am not sure how I feel.
In contast there are very few photos of me, as by the time I'd reached around seven or so I pretty much refused point blank to have my photo taken. There aren't even any school photos of me, once I turned ten years old because I stated very clearly that I didn't want any taken. The few photos of me in later childhood that do exist were mostly taken without my knowledge and then I'd get very angry afterwards, when I was informed about the photo being taken.
_________________
Gamsediog biptol ap simdeg Bimog, toto absolimoth dep nimtec gwarg. Am in litipol wedi memsodth tobetreg bim nib.
Somewhere completely different:
Autism Social Forum
I am no longer active on this forum, I've quit.
I have a lot of photos of me from when I was little. In most of them I'm either not smiling, or I have a very fake smile (like someone told me to smile and I didn't want to). In the candid ones, I usually have a very blank expression on my face.
_________________
"Have you never seen something so mad, so extraordinary... That just for one second, you think that there might be more out there?" -Gwen Cooper, Torchwood
Thats a good point , I don't think any of my photo's are candid , they are all "say cheese"
It was my candid photographs which taught me (I like the term Pavlovian, too) at about age three years that cameras flash bright lights at me and sometimes make squealing sounds when the batteries recharge. After that, I would close my eyes or look away, with a grimace. When I was an older child, I would refuse to allow my photograph being taken.
Now that I think about it, it was a few months ago that I read that dilated pupils are now sorta, kinda, considered another characteristic among autistic children. Boy howdy, it was true for me. In all my annual childhood school photographs at about age five years to age 14 years, my eyes looked like I was constantly loopy on something. Friends, coworkers and even teachers would comment about it. By the time I was about age 25 years, the dilation went away on its own; maybe because I began needing glasses.
Sooo, I suppose I was more sensitive to flashing bright lights than others because of my perma-dilation. Cameras were evil for a number of reasons: bright, loud and intrusive.
_________________
Diagnosed in 2015 with ASD Level 1 by the University of Utah Health Care Autism Spectrum Disorder Clinic using the ADOS-2 Module 4 assessment instrument [11/30] -- Screened in 2014 with ASD by using the University of Cambridge Autism Research Centre AQ (Adult) [43/50]; EQ-60 for adults [11/80]; FQ [43/135]; SQ (Adult) [130/150] self-reported screening inventories -- Assessed since 1978 with an estimated IQ [≈145] by several clinicians -- Contact on WrongPlanet.net by private message (PM)
lostonearth35
Veteran
Joined: 5 Jan 2010
Age: 50
Gender: Female
Posts: 11,979
Location: Lost on Earth, waddya think?
I guess you'd think I wasn't on the spectrum just from looking at my childhood photos because I'm smiling and really happy-looking in most of them. I actually showed facial expressions. How peculiar.
Actually, until I almost a teenager I looked very different as a kid than I do now, and if I didn't otherwise I wouldn't even know that's supposed to be me. Maybe I got replaced with someone else by aliens or something.
Similar Topics | |
---|---|
Loving the child hating their autism? |
16 Apr 2024, 7:08 am |
Michigan man arrested for sex crimes against child |
26 Mar 2024, 1:59 pm |
Raising a child with autism in Kenya |
03 Mar 2024, 7:51 pm |
Alabama Supreme Court - Embryo is a child |
01 Mar 2024, 1:51 am |