Mum of 5 diagnosed kids. My kids did this aswell as twirly circles. I noticed a boy at child care doing this. His mother just wanted us to remind him to walk flat footed. I told her it can be a red flag for autism & he had regular melt downs too. Denial- she didn’t want to know. I felt sorry for that boy not getting assistance and school is soon❤️
Hopefully the school process will get him diagnosed before he is too much older. I can tell you as a middle aged woman that is currently awaiting my assessment I wish I had known my entire life. It is ignorance about autism that is a major roadblock to diagnosis. People think that autism is a form of intellectual disability, or that autistic people cannot talk. Some of us can't talk, some of us are intellectually disabled, but many of us aren't. It isn't a bad thing to be autistic in and of itself. If more people understood that more parents would be open to their kids getting a diagnosis that they need to live their best lives. Because not being diagnosed isn't going to make it better
I have always been a toe walker. Now that I’m approaching middle age and am experiencing health problems, I feel like my toe walking is becoming a problem. My feet are overly stiff, and have caused excruciating pain. I’m trying to retrain myself, only now, to walk heel to toe. Looking back, the main reason I walked on my toes was twofold. Number one-I hated the way the ground felt on my feet. I wanted to minimize contact with uneven flooring, bad carpet textures, crumbs and dirt. Secondly, I wanted to walk as silently as possible, because I grew up in a stressful and abusive household, and wanted to attract as little attention as possible.
These are my reasons too. I hate getting debris stuck to the bottom of my feet, and I wanted to be a ghost to avoid being noticed/abused. I can only walk heel-toe inside while wearing slipper socks. Can’t do it barefoot.
At 56 I think toe walking has messed up my knees and ankle joints which hurt more and more as I get older. I was teased as a child for my bouncing gait and I worked hard to walk normally. I thought I had figured it out, but recently when I told a couple of people I used to walk on my toes, they told me I still walk funny.
I have the double whammy of toe walking and postural sway. That combination makes it a lot more fun and comfortable to walk on uneven ground than flat hard ground.
As a child I walked on tiptoe a lot, even now when I walk barefoot, for example in my apartment, I walk on tiptoe. I also noticed some time ago that I can never relax my shoulders when I walk, they are always like cramped.
same. hate that thump of your heels, fuck that. im not bigfoot, heel walkers are weird af to me. youre telling me, you slap your heel and thump the ground every time you step? no wonder people have back issues… all about the barefoot toe walking.
As a child I walked tiptoe, my parents took me to a doctor, then I was sent to a specialist, he said I had club feet and they butchered my feet. At 5 years I got my Achilles tendons on both legs cut and stretched, then at 7 they cut up my feet and tried to reconstruct my arches. I have had pain and walking problems since 1975.
46 years. I continue walking on tiptoe, it's my natural way of walking, I feel super light and the balance is perfect. I often walk and run barefoot in the woods, it's the natural way of doing it. No diagnosis.
Mostly tend to catch myself TOE WALKING in grocery stores when im in deep thought about what i need to get and then correct myself to walking normally Minding the socialphobia had always been a big thing too.. Ive only recently been suspecting im on the sutusm spectrum because that at least explains a lot of stuff that has happened
I have recently been diagnosed with ADHD. Now I am suspecting I'm on the autism spectrum... Excessive day dreaming, misophonia, toe walking, jumping or pacing around has always been prevalent. I still do toe-walking, it has manifested into wearing heels on a daily basis... I'm not really sure how to move forward from here. It's just so interesting to find another stim that I do. After learning about this correlation between toe-walking & autism, I'm definitely going to look more into haha... It's just really intimidating if I'm being honest. Thanks for the video!
I have always walked on my toes and I thought it was just me! Now I know. Also I have tense shoulders almost always, I have to actively think to relax them often and I almost always forget that I have them tense.
Complete silence and virtually never falling down even on a rolling deck. Balance normies would die for. They sound like a herd of elephants on stairs.
I have Asperger and I've done this my whole life however it never once occured to me that walking on my toes was linked in any way! I run up and down stairs on my toes and it makes me feel more balanced!
I'm a little late here, but I wanted to share my experience with toe walking regardless. I've been toe walking since I can remember and I find, that it is a whole combination of things that make me do it. 1. Sensory issues I hate wearing shoes in the house or on particular outdoor surfaces like sand and grass, because I kind of need to feel the surface that I'm walking/standing on. But whenever I am barefoot, my soles stick to the ground or I get small stuff stuck to the soles like crumbs, tiny stones, leaves etc. or there's a wet patch that i step into and I instantaneously shudder and get overwhelmed. So one of my instincts is, to minimize the surface area that can come into contact with icky ground. Hence the toe walk. 2. Pain Walking heel-toe does quite often cause me physical pain. The pressure on the heel starts to really hurt after a while and the entire "flat-foot-posture" starts to cause tension and pain in my legs, (causes actual cramping) and my back right up to my neck which can cause really bad tension headaches. So when I walk on my toes (or high heels) there is less pain than with regular flat shoes or barefoot. Also the impact vibrations of the heel hitting the ground while walking hurts and is quite disconcerting to me. 3. Ease of motion I find that toe walking is more "springy" than heel-toe. It takes less energy for me to "propel" myself forward when I'm not involving the heel. So I can walk/run faster and not get tired as quickly as when I go heel-toe. Toe walking also allows for a more quiet step, which is nice because it ties into Nr. 1 sensory issues. If I'm not stomping around like a drunk rhino, there is less noise I have to deal with.
OH MY GOSH this hit SO many marks, I'm a toe-walker, callouses on the toe-knuckles, I've ALWAYS had muscular calves, and the tightening feels also related to my long-time signature position: the squat. Another thing I'm really picking up on in what you're saying, regarding the allowance of energy flow - slowing down. I've often felt that my consciousness is either moving at a pace much faster than everyone around me, or much much slower (depending on the situation/activity). I've often felt pushed to match the pace of everyone else, and I think for me that's much of what that tightening is about.
There's a book by Philip K Dick called Martian Time Slip that imagines that autism is a disorder of time perception. I've often wondered if he's onto something.
@@Xianomega I've only been diagnosed last week at 43 been diagnosed with hsd to at 40 after fybromyalgia symptoms.i always felt life spinning or slow to my grandfather managed to get threw life keeping away from people country life.
Hi, I have Asperger's and it's interesting hearing about this because I pretty much don't do this unless I have a cramp in my foot. I didn't know this is a thing the other autistic people might do.
My family and I are not diagnosed. But my cousin walked around her house like this for years, supposedly to be more like a princess. I used to think that's the one thing about ASD that I don't relate to, but I remember constantly tiptoeing around my house, especially on the stairs, because I hated being perceived and the noise of creaking wood. I wanted to be as silent as possible because I didn't want my parents to know where I was because they would inevitably assign me some chore or task. It did occur to me much later that it was weird that I felt a deep need to tiptoe around my own house. I could never relax around my parents... Or anyone else, for that matter.
I'm fifty-three now and my feet are half as wide as they are long from always being on tiptoes. When I wear shorts people comment on how large and defined my calf muscles are. My therapist however doesn't seem to understand it when I say I feel like I'm floating and told me to try sensory deprivation tank.
Not only toe walking…walking on the outer edges of feet (supination) is also a common gait difference related to autism. If you do this you’ll be able to tell by looking at the bottom of your shoes. If the outer side of each shoe is more worn than heel and toe you have a supinated gait.
That can be related to the body being stuck in extension which happens when the nervous system is basically locked in a sympathetic state like fight or flight.
I wouldn’t say outside heel wear is inherently bad because during the gait cycle (walking) the foot first contact is a heel strike with a supinated foot in order to transition to pronation for weight bearing before supinating again to push off. It would be interesting to see how the foot’s position changes the gait when in shoes such as high heels. Probably something similar to toe walking as it’s a similar position expect the whole foot is contact with the shoe rather than just the ball of the foot 🤔
@@SirKillah To clarify, not outside HEEL… rather the majority of the outer side of foot (from small toe to outer heel)…so placing weight more on outsides of feet rather than even contact across foot as contact is made with surface.
If you want loose shoulders while walking while front footing it then get your chin up. Easier to do bare footed. Hard soles in your footwear is the problem. Even normal people mostly slouch while walking for this reason.
Im an autistic woman who of course never knew until I was 37. I toe walked as a child. Thing is my son who is so obviously autistic everyone knows immediately just looking at him was NOT a toe walker until he hit age 10 or 11. I have all the home videos to show it. Now hes 15 and is high up on those toes and you cant tell him anything against it. Now people see him and immediately assume hes incapable of most things and they think hes got the mind of a much younger child. He doesnt like that people that hes incapable of things his age boys should be able to do but he refuses to even try re learning to walk heel toe. Its going to negatively effect his life if he doesn't make an effort to modify this.
I'm not autistic but I started toe walking when I was a kid because heel strikes gave me headaches. The toe walk is way more springy and absorbs a lot of impact in the muscles of the legs rather than the heel. The way I toe walk is more understated than how I've seen some autistic people toe walk though. If you look at me walk, you might not even notice that I'm toe walking because my heels are low but my weight is all in the front of the foot. Anyway, I think toe walking is superior to the heel-toe walk or heel strike even in running.
My 8 year old grandson has been doing it since he began walking. He was almost 15 months old when he began walking. What you're saying makes a lot of sense. I get it. Thanks
Damn dude, i wonder if this would mean adhd is not all i have. Ive always been rediculously tense, and i guess i just became my norm. Now if i relax an area its almost like an instant panic as if something is wrong. Its entirely subconcious and my inability to relax antagonistic muscles, has always been a real irritation. I fully relate to what you are saying about how no sensory feedback causes a feeling of discomfort and slight panic. I dont know what you would define this as, i always atteibuted it to adhd, but i feel like im 24/7 thinking 200 mile an hour, i get bored of all the stimulus around me as it just doesnt interest me enough to maintain any moderate term attention. I feel like because of this, im always questioning everything and the combo of always being hyper aware and tense anyway, plus the lack of general stimulus, starts me subconciously questioning why i feel so little, why my muscles dont feel well much at all. Theres certainly nothing wrong in the moment but i may talk myself into it and begin the process of becoming more and more tense and too aware of what im physically doing. I toe walked till the age of 12 or so. I realised whilst recording my gait that my heels really smushed into the floor, i just thought maybe my ankles were collapsing in, but now after hearing you say that, i think its because i also have no callouses on my heels at all, they are all around the foorefoot and big toe. Im guessing in normal walkers that this area becomes much harder and doesn't just smush 😆. I will say i dont mind the feeling of my heel on the floor at all, i enfact kindof enjoy it, i dont currently know exactly why ive always toe walked, but it may be an issue ive had long term in the hips.
I was diagnosed with ADHD as a child but it wasn't called ADHD I was coined a Slow Learner only later in my adult life (I am 50 years old) did I learn the name of the name of my slow learning condition. I do remember as a child though I would walk on my toes, I did not realize I was doing it but one of my grandmothers would notice when I would do it and she would ask "Why are you walking tippy toe" than she would point it out to my parents and ask them "Why is my grandbaby walking tippy toed like that, look" and she would point at me and tell my parents they needed to get me checked cause that isn't normal.
I remember walking on my toes and I would pretend I was a ballerina. When I was around 7 years old it got painful to walk on my toes so I stopped doing it. I didn't outgrow spinning in circles until years later.
I’m sad. Toe walking has always been something I did regularly, and I did this into adulthood. But I had to stop because I fell and damaged my Achilles tendons, and I now can’t toe walk at all now. 😢
Omg I have this 4 yo in my building that is clearly showing signs,further more many people 8n his family have mental disabilities. It's so sad to see them all ignoring it
I have this tightness thing really really bad actually. It’s a huge problem. I hurt myself gripping things too hard. My body hurts so bad. I will notice that I’m tensing something and concentrate on relaxing that only to discover another area is tensing so then I focus on relaxing that and then another area is tensing and so then I’ll try to relax and discover that the first place is tensing again. And it does feel also like anxiety, though not about anything, but like i have to hold on to something for dear life or i might fall into an eternal vortex... I used to have more of like a restless leg syndrome. I had to be moving constantly, even in bed, or it was an awful feeling. Lots of years of meditation practice and I can hold still now, but then I will be doing something really weird with my fists or my feet or my butt cheeks or jaw, or holding my arm in a really weird position. It’s so difficult to control. It’s impossible at this point. Also, sometimes I toe walk, but mostly I don’t anymore. I worked really hard in high school to walk heel to toe. I focus on that and often feel really uneven when I walk. I used to drag my toes and ruin my shoes as a kid.
I do it when I am moving slowly or when I feel at ease such as indoors or though a park However I take large strides heel to toe when I have somewhere to be. I tend to toe walk when paying attention to my surroundings is a good way to put it.
I've always toe walked, never understood it was partly stimming till recently. I've been trying my best to correct it as much as I can because I already have muscle and health problems and I don't want it to become a actual issue later on. For now I've gotten to where I mostly do it barefoot and up the stairs. Getting there slowly, hopefully I'll get to where I at least can walk on hardwood floor comfortably.
I dislike high heel shoes! Wish I could bring back the earth shoe like were popular when I was a teen. Designed to hold foot at a slight uphill angle while walking on flat ground. Of course, those were hard to wear if you were on an actual uphill route!
@@yourfuturewaifu9061🙃 Also a more inclusive definition of what constitutes Autism. 20 years ago pretty much you had to be noticably intellectually disabled to get a diagnosis.
Anxiety and tightness, selfishness and cowardice. It all stems from childhood, when your mum did not teach you to forget your little selfish requirements.
