9 Childhood Autistic Traits in Girls | EARLY SIGNS OF AUTISM

I remember that I loved being alone as a child. Yes, I did play with others but I had no problem being alone for hours. I actually needed this and still do

Olivia, you have no idea how much relief your videos give me. My daughter is 3 and I am seeing literally all of these traits in her. My dearest hope is that she ends up being a happy adult.

Making decisions is always very difficult 😥. Being on a schedule is quite necessary. Gut issues always. Thank you Olivia. You are so brave.

I can't take my daughter to the toy store and tell her to pick out what you want. She'll wander the store forever.

I still experience difficulties decision making and im 25 years old with 2 kids 🙃🙃🙃 you are not alone girl!!

Between my daughter and me, I feel like we display all of these traits... we haven’t been diagnosed, but I started to suspect we might be on the spectrum when I was noticing a-typical behavior in my daughter. Started watching videos for her benefit and have found that I struggle with sensory issues (light, noise, bedding, clothing). I get super interested in topics (literally losing sleep over wanting to learn more) and become an expert and then get bummed that there’s no more to learn about that topic. Super meticulous about lots of tasks. Too exhausting to keep more than a couple close friends. I can read emotions well and am empathetic, but I react to and interpret unexpected sarcasm literally. Even if I know a person is joking, my first instinct is to take everything literally which makes me feel silly sometimes. Don’t you dare cover my nostril while kissing or I feel like I will suffocate. Same if the air in a room or car is too warm. My husband enjoys surprises and I do not. I want to know what’s coming - even if it’s a good thing! Probably amongst other things that I chalked up to me just being different.

Man, while I don't relate to delayed speech, that whole "taking everything in... feeding the computer" thing hits. When my friends introduce me to a new game, I want to sit and watch them play it, and have the chance to take in information about the basics before I ever get a controller in my hands. Trying to adjust to a new game while also having to make decisions in real-time is information overload and I don't much like it. Not to say I can't try out new games on my own, but I much prefer to watch if it's an active or FPS game.

I recently realized I had so many meltdowns as a kid. I remember crying and going to my parents for help but when they asked me what was wrong I didnt know what was wrong. Existence just got really painful for seemingly no reason. And even if I did know what was wrong, I couldnt actually speak to tell them. The only word I could say when melting down was mom, which didnt really help.

The “sitting and taking things in” is something I can definitely relate to. As a teenager, I remember that when I would meet new people, particularly in groups, I would just sit by myself watching and listening. It would need to do this many times before feeling like I “understood” them enough to assimilate into their group. It worked well for me at the time. I was a very attractive young women and my friend groups were always made up of guys, so they never seemed to care much when I wasn’t talking. They were just happy to have a pretty girl around! 😄

I'm glad you pointed out that boys can present in the same way girls. As a guy, I didn't have the more stereotypical male traits and several of the traits you describe I recognize in myself based on what I can remember and what my parents have told me. Just goes to show that, as you said, everyone on the spectrum is different and not all of us fit in clear cut categories. Thanks Olivia!

#1: I also had delayed speech. Strange thing about me was when I did start talking, it was perfect. People would ask me to say complex words and I almost always pronounced them correctly. #2: I was also very shy. And well... I still am haha. As far as separation anxiety, there was a time I remember holding on to the porch rail so tight my mom actually couldn’t get me off of it to put me on the school bus. I was screaming and crying, wrapped around a post, pretty much immovable. I hated school all the way up through high school. #3: I pretty much had one friend through 4th grade and I liked the teachers more than I liked the kids my age. And my teachers liked me. But I moved from the country to the city after 4th grade, they were NOT my kind of people. I felt the teachers were no more mature than the children in my classes. And yeah, I had little interest in people... again I’m still that way. I have a girlfriend. She’s the only person I take a true, undying interest in. #4: I was an EXTREMELY picky eater. I would eat 3-4 peanut butter sandwiches a day for several years, partially out of routine. I can’t eat bitter things, I will spit out dark chocolate to this day. Textures are extremely important, I wouldn’t and still can’t let food touch, especially if it’s something with juice, like green beans, next to mashed potatoes. Nasty. Smells have always been a huge problem for me. My grandmother was making sourkraut one time and I couldn’t go in the house. Going down the detergent isle in the store still gives me a headache. Sound didn’t start bothering me till around high school. As far as clothing goes, I could wear most things, but I had a lot of trouble wearing something I hadn’t worn before, especially shoes. #5: Yep... I am completely inflexible. Routine wasn’t as big a deal when I was younger that I can remember, but that’s because I didn’t have a whole lot to put into a routine. Now that I’m working, breaks in routine completely throw me off. If we have a late start to the day, I’m actually worse off than if we did our regular 7:30 start to the work day. I work in construction, so honestly at this point, I’m so exhausted and deep into burnout that I don’t really have the capacity to actually freak out about smaller breaks in routine. However as someone on the spectrum, I just stared driving last week (I’m 23) and I’m definitely still capable of feeling the stress and anxiety from that haha. #6: I’ve had many special interests. And I’ll be honest, #1 is firearms, or as they’re better known to most people; guns XD Any time I see one, I can usually tell you what it is and what ammunition it fires. If you handed it to me, I could operate it as if I owned and was trained on it within a minute or two. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s no different from trains and the like. It’s a machine. The difference is, it’s small and simple. As an American, I’m lucky enough to be able to own them, so it’s something I can get my hands on and take apart, put back together, learn every piece and what it’s function is and so on. Firearms have a set of physics behind them that really fascinates me. Other special interests include music and... well now I’ve got a bunch of smaller ones that I can’t pick from to mention. Which brings us to... #7: Yeah no, I couldn’t and still can’t make decisions. I have very few opinions. If there’s not a logical reason to choose one thing over another, I can’t make the decision. Or if they have a very similar number of pros and cons, I’ll never make a solid decision. #8: This was less the case as a kid I think, I don’t really remember, but now it is definitely the case. Being someone that’s kinda hyper logical, my brain expends a lot of time and effort figuring out what the best way for something to go is, and if someone changes that, I’m not very happy, even if I don’t show it. There are a lot of people I just can’t work with and do things with, because my decisions are always questioned or changed, and I can’t handle that. It’s one of the biggest things that causes me to stim and start feeling like I need to be alone or I’m going to have a meltdown. #9: DEFINITELY had and have stomach issues. Now that I’m more in control and have an eating routine, same things, same time, every day aside from weekends, it’s a lot better. But apparently all my life, all the way back to being a baby, I wouldn’t eat because it hurt my stomach. I had the other problem. In 8th grade, my mom had to pick me up from school almost every other day for months because I would have stomach pain that would actually paralyze me. My muscles were so tense from it that they wouldn’t respond to my will to stand. Of course by the time I got home, that ended in me staying in the restroom a while. Not fun, especially for someone prone to sensory issues haha. I had to do this and hit on every point, because I relate so well. Im not actually diagnosed, and I don’t think I really want to be. I’m self diagnosed, and there are enough resources such as yourself that I can learn from and improve my life with that I don’t need to put it on my record. Unfortunately it can cause me to be dismissed from many things. But anyway, thank you for making these videos! They are very helpful. Keep up the good work.

My dear you have changed my world. I am 66 years old never diagnosed but I knew/know that I was/am "different". So many of the traits you mentioned I had/have As a young adult I asked my mom if she was ever told that I was slow. My perception of life is different than everyone I know, while in most cases it has turned out that I was spot on, my process of facts are was different. Thanks to you I am going to investigate and address this further, LOL sound familiar. Thank you love.

Your honesty and self-revelation (and self-celebration) is a real gift to other young women. BRAVO Olivia!!

You're literally telling my story. Thank you.

Feels like you just described my childhood 😅

My daughter sounds exactly like you. We sort of self diagnosed her ourselves recently (age 23). Her interest is in pets! Our dog was a therapy dog for her.

its so hard to describe how horrible and painful my childhood was. i still am not over it.

I was super interested in horses for many years as a child. I drew horses, read about horses, pretended to have horses, pretended to be a horse, all the time. I did play with other children at school, but most of my horse stuff was just me by myself. I also struggled with decisions, still do.

I am a teacher and interact with autistic children, this helps me very much. My niece is autistic, this helps me understand her more. You are amazing. I am going to watch more of your videos, thanks for sharing your life experiences. God Bless!

This hit too close to home but I'm grateful you made this. My childhood sucked because no one was patient enough to understand me. I tried so hard to be "normal" most of my life and it was miserable.