Physics and Biology

Frequently autism (and Aspergers in particular) has what would appear to be physical side-effects.

It is well known that many people with Aspergers seem to have had a grant from the Ministry of Silly Walks. I certainly remember as a child having it pointed out to me by the children at school that I walked in a strange way. The bus used to arrive late every day, and so I was always late for chapel in the morning. I was in the choir, so I had to walk down the aisle in full view of everyone when I arrived. I think I just used to take very large strides, but I believe that wore off when I was quite young. I haven’t really noticed. The most common silly walk that I have noticed in others is the Thunderbirds Walk, where the person moves around like a marionette, but I don’t think I succumbed to that one.

I have had motor coordination problems, though, which is also quite common with Aspergers. When I was 6 or 7 I wrote extremely slowly, like each letter was being drawn rather than written. I then had to speed up and it became completely illegible. After much tedious handwriting practice I reached a compromise of being able to write not too slowly and at the same time reasonably neatly, but this all went to pot when I went university and had to scribble extremely quickly with a biro before the lecture notes got rubbed off the board. Now, of course, I type mostly and I seem to have to concentrate quite hard to achieve anything more than a scribble with pen and paper. I don’t really know whether being healed has affected my fine motor coordination, as I don’t write (without a computer) all that much any more. I suspect, it may be possible to significantly improve with practice, on the basis of what I will say further down.

I also used to be largely incapable of kicking a ball straight. Given that the kind of school I went to was very sports orientated, I was never particularly in with the establishment or the other boys. In fact I grew to hate all forms of physical exercise because of it (and because of having flat feet and not being able to run very well). Having said that, when I was 13 I did do a squash course and was able fairly consistently to land the ball in the back corner of the court, even using a racket with a small round head, as they were in those days. I also became good at dinghy sailing, though not that good as I didn’t like getting cold and wet or swinging scarily from a trapeze. Oh, and I remember becoming good at badminton, except when the fluorescent lights were on, and then giving up just as the teacher was about to nominate me for the school team. So I think I grew out of some of the coordination problems that I had when I was 7 and had to play football for the first time.

I used to play the flute, and to a certain extent this was a source of frustration. Flute playing seems to be all about being able to play really fast, but I reached a plateau around the grade VI point. More recently (after being healed) I took up playing again, and I certainly improved beyond where I had been. This is why I say that my fine motor skills may now be able to be improved with practice.

By the way my flat feet, and also problems with my left knee, seem to run in the family. My Dad broke his cartilage on his left knee. Problems in this area have an uncanny resemblance with one of the initiation rituals in Freemasonry, so there is a possibility of a connection here (inherited family curses due to oaths taken). I still have problems with my feet, though I can comfortably walk long distances in walking boots.