I’m a brain specialist – here are 10 tell-tale signs of autism in my behavior that made me seek an assessment

By William On Jul 7, 2024

A woman revealed the 10 telltale signs that made her decide to get an autism assessment, including ‘relapses after social interactions’.

Emilie Leyes, a brain-training expert in New York, said she was diagnosed with autism last year after noticing some “autistic traits” that prompted her to seek testing.

On her Instagram account: Emilie shared a clipwhich was viewed more than 12,000 times and described the features to look out for.

The TikToker encouraged her followers to take a “RAADS-R test” if they recognize themselves in the characteristics, to “get a better picture” of the spectrum disorder.

FEMAIL provides an overview of Emilie’s top 10 signs that may indicate that she is autistic…

New York brain training expert Emilie Leyes revealed the 10 telltale signs that prompted her to get an autism assessment, including ‘shutdowns after social interactions’

1. Votes

She said, ‘Number one stimming, I’m constantly moving my body. I feel like I can’t regulate or process information or emotions unless I’m stimming in some way.

“If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a repetitive body movement that is self-soothing. When I was younger, I would spend hours and hours and hours twirling my hair and now I’m fiddling with my popsockets and I still can’t sit still.”

2. Collapses

She said: ‘I’ve always found it really hard when plans or expectations change because I have such a fixed image in my head of how certain things are going to be or what certain days are going to be like.

“If that were disrupted in any way, it would lead to meltdowns, confusion, and anger. Even if it’s a small, simple change, it’s very difficult for me to process that.”

3. Intense sensory experiences

She added: ‘Number three is intense sensory experiences. I’m very sensitive to light and sound; I feel like I can hear electricity and sometimes it’s a lot.

“I feel like I lose my balance if I don’t wear comfortable clothes. I’m not allowed to wear anything that touches my armpits and I didn’t wear jeans until I was a teenager.”

4. Closures

Emilie said: ‘Social interactions are really draining for me. I’m a social person and I enjoy talking to people, but they take so much energy that I often shut down after big social events or if I have a lot to do in a day or a week, I need days to recover from that with minimal contact with people.’

Emilie shared a clip on her Instagram @emilieleyes, which has been viewed more than 12,000 times, in which she describes the characteristics to look out for

5. Hyperfixations

She said: ‘I’ve always had very strong, specific interests. I get really obsessed with a topic, I get hyper-fixated on it, I can’t think about anything else, I don’t want to talk about anything else, I get frustrated if I can’t talk about it, and I take in information about a topic very quickly.

‘I have a strong connection with my specific interests. Of course everyone has interests, but autistic people often have a different intensity towards their interests.’

6. Intense need to plan

Emilie shared that she always has an ‘intense need to plan and prepare’ for every occasion.

She added: ‘I need to feel 100 per cent prepared for the situation I’m going to be in. That’s why I practice conversations in my mind in front of the mirror before I go out and interact with people.

‘I study the menus of restaurants before I go so that I don’t get overwhelmed by the choice.

“I literally studied for high school. I read a book on how to survive high school and I read it like 10 times the summer before sixth grade because I felt like I needed enough information to feel safe, like I could handle it.”

7. Masking

Emilie admitted to wearing masks and being extremely conscious of her behavior in social interactions.

She said: ‘I am very much a ‘high masker’, which means I camouflage and hide my autistic traits. Part of that experience is that in social interactions I am very conscious of how I interact with people.

‘I struggle with whether I’m making eye contact in the right way, I don’t know which eye to look at, I don’t know when to look away. I’m really conscious of my body when I’m talking to people, I feel really exposed and uncomfortable.’

8. Repeating sentences

“I’ve always quoted things from TV shows, and people of all neurotypes quote things from TV shows all the time. But I’ve found that when I’m watching a show and I hear people saying things in a different way, I repeat those things in social interactions because it feels safe,” Emilie explains.

9. Taking things literally

Emilie claims that she understands nuances and metaphors, but that she takes everything literally.

She explains: ‘My brain always goes to the literal explanation first.

“So, the expression ‘killing two birds with one stone’ is an expression, I know what it means, but my brain automatically visualizes killing two birds with one stone.”

10. Always feeling different

She said: ‘I’ve always felt different from the people around me. Before I knew I was autistic I was so confused that everything seemed so easy to everyone else. I didn’t understand why it was so easy to just decide what to cook and then do it.

‘Or how people could just have the social battery to get through the day. I always felt ashamed that I couldn’t do as much as the people around me, and I felt like there was a rule book or a handbook that I wasn’t given to teach me how to be a person.

‘In reality, I’ve just been given a different operating system, and now that I know I’m autistic, it’s much easier to adapt and accept myself.’

WHAT IS AUTISM?

Autism is a lifelong developmental disorder that affects people’s behavior in many areas.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, autistic people may have difficulties with social, emotional, and communication skills.

Others find bright lights or loud noises overwhelming and stressful, or exhibit repetitive behaviors.

Autism is not a disease or condition.

How often does it happen?

It is estimated that around 700,000 people, both adults and children, in the UK have an autism diagnosis.

According to a 2021 study from Newcastle University, approximately one in 57 (1.76 percent) children in the UK has an autism spectrum disorder.

In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 5.4 million adults, about 2.2 percent of the population, have autism.

People of all nationalities and cultural, religious and social backgrounds can have autism.

However, in men and boys the risk is up to five times higher.

The exact reason is still unclear, but some research suggests that boys are at greater risk for the various genetic causes of autism.

Researchers also believe that many girls ‘go undetected’ because they struggle to get a diagnosis, are not diagnosed until later in life, or are misdiagnosed with a condition other than autism.

Are there different types?

Historically, autism has been classified into several diagnoses, including Asperger syndrome, autistic disorder, Kanner syndrome, childhood autism, atypical autism, and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS).

Because each diagnosis showed features of autism, they were replaced by autism spectrum disorder, which is now the umbrella term for the group.

Yet there are people diagnosed with Asperger’s who still use the term.

According to the National Autistic Society, people with Asperger’s do not have the learning difficulties that many autistic people have. The NHS says some people call this ‘high-functioning autism’.

What causes it?

Despite years of research, scientists still don’t know what causes autism.

Research has shown that the disease may be caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

In the late 1990s, concerns arose about a possible link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

But countless scientific studies have since shown that there is no link at all between vaccines – or their ingredients – and autism.

Bad parenting is not a cause either.