Why Does John Elder Robison Say "WOOF" a Lot?

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I watched one of the recent videos that was added on WP the other day, where he is being interviewed by Alex Plank, and he woofs once at the beginning, and a few times at the end. Why?

I would upload the video, but for some reason it won't let me embed it. Anyway, you can view it on: "7 Great Autism Videos from the IMFAR Conference You Don't Want to Miss". It's the 5th video down.

Just struck me as odd....

I hope you can see the irony in what you said.

You're on an Asperger's forum, dressed up like a Ninja, with rabbits in your sig, and you're calling someone weird for woofing.

Anyhow, I read one of his books, and he explained the woof thing in there as simply a sound he likes to make. Don't you have any funny sounds or mannerism?

I had to train myself out of drastically strong noises. I used to make all sorts of semi-conscious reactionary noises. Whether it was an animal I would respond to, or a tree rustling in the wind, or a door creaking closed, I would have a chirp or warble or other sound in response. By the time I was in grade 3, people were taking notice. Took me a few more years to fully eliminate them, and I do still sometimes talk back to animals and birds, but I've stopped responding to non-animals.

"Woof" is just something he uses to express himself. It makes him happy. It shouldn't bother you.

Please don't get me wrong. I wasn't bothered by it, and I didn't wish to show him up. I was just curious.

As far as I know, I don't have any odd vocal mannerisms, although I did have a mild vocal tic as a kid, which I can now suppress (even though I usually no longer have to these days as it seems to have more or less subsided).

And I wasn't calling him weird. I had wondered if it was a tic / stim etc, but it seemed to me that he used it as a sort of greeting / farewell gesture.

Yeah, second poster took it a bit seriously...

Anyways, I've read both of his books and seen several of his interviews. I think that I remember him saying he used it as a conversation filler of sorts, but I can't remember if those were his exact words.

Thanks. That's all I needed.

I wasn't trying to be serious, though I do tend to come off that way. I just found it a bit ironic.

I think that when people learn to suppress vocal tics and so forth, that it is common to replace them with other odd sounding mannerisms -- but ones that are "socially acceptable".

The kinds of sounds I was making worried people, the kind of stuff where they tell you that you should go see a psychiatrist. Blah.

Later on after I suppressed them, throughout my youth I had tons of odd sounds, but I made sure they were of the socially acceptable "just a little quirky" variety.

Perhaps it is the same thing with him, a way to get the feeling out without offending too much.

Luckily for me all I ever had as a kid was a subtle coughy / groany / grunty type thing, and I only ever get the urge to do it nowadays when I think about it. It wasn't anything too bad as it was quiet, but the quieter a room was with other people occupying it, the more intense the urge was and the louder the tic would want to come out.

It never caused me any problems though (apart from being a little embarrassing and making me feel self-conscious) and no-one ever really seemed to pick up on it and point it out.

It's like me saying meow a lot. I like cats, so I meow.