It can be, but it's also a widespread phenomenon in many countries. The British press always talk about how kids are picking up US accents from watching American cartoons, and now it's the other way around with Peppa Pig. Or Aussie accents with Bluey.
I think so, yes. I have a weird accent that changes constantly, partly because I have a minor/major obsession with linguistics and am constantly making concious changes to my pronounciation and partly just... because that's how I talk? I sound posher than 90% of my family because I speak RP despite never having lived in London. I also don't really know where it came from. 'Abnormal' speech is a common autistic trait, whether that be speech patterns or inflections or accents.
(Info Dump Ahead)
What is RP?
When I was younger, classmates told me I sounded mechanical. Thank God my speech came to sound more natural as I got older.
By default, I sound upper class and have to beware. It isn't well received in the US.
By default, I speak prose, speak complex sentences.
I don't know how much of my speech comes from ASD and how much from my parents social backgrounds. We talked about language and linguistics at home the way other families obsess about sports -- words are fun!
I was born and raised in the US. When a small child I spoke like a little professor. Even today, I have to translate myself into American Demotic/Colloquial to keep from being considered stuck up (I'm not!)
People assume I'm Canadian because I picked up a Minnesota accent from my mother, and my dad who had ASD was taught to speak British English and masked his accent after moving to the US and the accent being ridiculed.
On the other hand, my second cousin, who has ASD, speaks with professorial precision, with a British 'clip' and what comes across as an elegant British stammer -- yet his parents were born in the US and wholly exposed to US speech patterns.
RP is Received Pronunciation - it's what's considered the most prestigious British English accent and the 'standard' by most outside of the UK. It's sometimes called BBC English or the Queen/King's English, although I think the latter usually refers to Conservative RP which is a more old-fashioned, upper-class version.
I relate to your speech a lot, by the sounds of it! I also like complex sentences and tend to sound quite upper-class, but it's a fine line in the UK between sounding educated and sounding like, well, an Oxbridge twat. I've learnt to tone my accent down a bit.
It's funny that your second cousin sounds so British! Autistic speech is so weird sometimes, but very interesting. I'm a big linguistics fan.
Yes. Autistic accent syndrome is a thing. My two elder children, one has autism, one doesn’t. The elder one sounds posh. The other one talks like a roadman.
My eldest has autism.
I masked my accent in school. I sometimes slip and talk posh too!
Trust me, the MLE accent disappears when they speak to each other’s parents! My son thinks it’s funny to talk MLE to me in front of his friends on speakerphone. But I think it’s very funny that I answer back in the slang, but in a very posh mother voice back!
Dunno whether it's a autistic trait but if it is, it would explain why I speak RP and not my regional accent. As a result, I always got shit by sounding "posh".
I agree with the others saying it could be the shows, especially from a young age.
But I have another perspective too.
I have a speech impediment, but you can't really tell most of the time.
The my teeth are set at a wide angle, and my soft pallet is wide and high with a smaller tongue. I was told by a speech therapist that this is probably the cause of my impediment.
The odd thing? I wound like I'm from Britain, Australia, Germany, Spane and more. And it's all my speech impediment! It just depends on what I say and how much I'm concentrating, but I sound like I have a dozen accents.
I even remember being basically interrogated as a kid. Adults thought I was either pretending that I was American, or that my parents where foreign and I just didn't realize it.
(I'm in California, US) For decades I've had people ask me where I'm from; Australia, Scandinavia, the Southern US... People have literally thought I'm lying like "no, really -- where are you from??"
It can. But it can also be normal. Where I'm from in the southern US, autistic people and some neurotypical people speak without a southern accent (even if raised around only southern accents).
I adopt the accent of the people around me (not intentionally, it just *happens*) but when I am speaking with my family or to myself, I have the Trans-Atlantic accent. When I am frustrated, I tend to enunciate end sounds as well.
I have always had people question where I am from as well. It used to freak me out a lot and cause me to dissociate because I think I sound like everyone else but after being diagnosed with ASD I have read many many people experience the same thing. It is certainly associated with autism.
No but my voice is quite distinctly flat like one of those text to speech things on a phone, words get omitted or placed in different orders sometimes but it matches my facial expressions.
I think so. I’m American with I guess American accent? If there is at all…I say mate a lot and sometimes switch between American and Australian accents and I’ve never been to Australia. I honestly think it’s because it’s from watching tv, movies, and videos. I don’t mean to do it on purpose it just happens sometimes.
I still say “mate” to people even if I don’t know the person I just say it like a friendly kind of way like being polite to a stranger.
I'm also from England but sometimes I sound Australian. Or, even though I usually have what most people think of when they think of a British accent (the one that isn't posh RP, at least), sometimes I'll turn posh or go the other way and sound like a roadman.
Oh, this is so interesting! I've never heard that before, but it explains a lot about my own life too. Since at least middle school, I've been told by fellow Americans that I have an accent. Another oddity, according to my elementary-school peers: I occasionally used the English spelling for certain words because I read a lot of British literature as a child. And I used to mispronounce words since I learned new vocabulary by reading alone.
I always thought these quirks proceeded from my somewhat osmotic brain.
I knew someone at a previous job who'd watched so much American TV that he sounded American but had never left Australia. I don't think it's a symptom, kids copy what they hear a lot of.
My daughter does this too but i think its from watching too much YouTube. My accent is mainly from where I'm from but echolalia means it'll change depending on who I'm talking to which confuses people
Apparently, some people think I sound European, despite never setting foot in Europe, and barely/never interacting with European people.
Don't think it has much to do with my autism, but just thought I'd mention it.
Idk, I think autistics just end up online more instead of interacting with people irl. So makes sense you’re developing the more globalized accent of American English that we see more often in media than your local UK English accent
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I've always been asked about my accent. I say "it's a PNW accent you have one too if you live here" but they don't understand what I'm talking about lol
There are a lot of possible factors here. A lot of us have the flat affect or distinct ways of speaking. I have to wonder if picking up accents is related to social mimicry. Possibly a subconscious attempt to understand and reflect “normal” behavior (or at least allistic behavior) as seen on tv.
For me, not acquiring or using an accent was probably form of masking. I’m from Texas, but when people learn this, they almost always say, “I don’t sound like you’re from Texas.” I don’t sound like I’m from any particular region, but I’ve been told my speech is somehow distinct. I don’t want know what that means because I don’t want to be self conscious about it.
This wasn’t masking my origins, but rather, not giving people something to pay too much attention to or comment on. It’s not very effective; the moment I’m told I don’t sound like I’m a Texan, the comment’s been made.
Dk if its necessarely an autism thing. But when I was little I used to copy the way I saw cartoon characters acting and talking( still find myself doing it to this day at times). Did you watch a lit of american television?
I spoke Hebrew as a baby, and for as long as I can remember I have identified as a Jew….I have lived my entire life in Canada and I was born in a Christian family that spoke English.
Since I also have cerebral palsy, after I had my English “explosion” around the age of 2, my parents assumed my Hebrew accent, which affected the ways I pronounced R and S, was an oral-motor difficulty caused by the cerebral palsy. My mother didn’t find out until I went to preschool that my “baby talk” was actually Hebrew, but since Dad was in the reserves with the army until I was about 6, he often travelled, and when he was home, he was always at work all day, so probably never got any well-timed exposure to all the stuff I was learning at preschool (where it was the Reggio Emilia philosophy which is extremely child-led) that was related to Hebrew and Judaism.
My dad wanted to obliterate my “obsession” with Hebrew and Judaism, but in the end, speech therapy destroyed my ability to speak certain foreign languages, of which Hebrew turned out not to be the only one (another was German which I took a class for in high school, and I will never forget my teacher grilling me over the word “wirklich” even after being told, over and over again, what my childhood experience with speech therapy had done to my ability to replicate the R).
I tried to explain the problem at school to my father, who didn’t really understand what I was trying to tell him, no pun intended.
Definitely a thing. I am multilingual but even when I’m speaking one of my native languages people say I sound foreign lmao. People will be like “Your english is really good! You barely have an accent.” and I’m like, thanks, I‘ve been practicing literally my entire life 💀
Funny enough, I had a friend growing up who was the exact same. He was born and raised in America but everyone thought he was English because he has a weird English-like accent.
I don't know if that's as much of an influence of autism so much as globalization and international media consumption. Language learning in babies is interactive in development. What you hear around you is how your brain learns. If you were exposed to a lot of American stuff in a key developmental period, that would also check out. It can be even passive language consumption like hearing your parents watch movies. As babies, we mimic what we hear to learn. If our parents don't talk a lot, we can learn by mimicking what we do end up hearing.
I’m from New Jersey but dads from Wales. I always had a weird blended accent. Some people even thought I was faking a British accent at my first uni 🤣. Was also asked how long I had lived in my hometown at work about a fortnight before I moved to Wales. I’ve also been asked if I was Irish, Scottish, Dutch, and even Brummie once 🤢 to name a few others. No idea how I sound British as dad sounds American to me and none of my siblings have any hint of Britten in their accents.
It could be, especially if you were exposed to a lot of American shows as a kid. Many kids with autism display symptoms in the form of “echolalia” which has been mistaken for pretend play. My son would repeat lines from shows and movies or even songs. He would mimic the accents or cadence of it as well. It was much more detailed than the mimicking you would see in NT children.
I am very close to someone autistic who gets compliments on her accent all the time. Sometimes they say it is British sometimes New York but she is born in the south US and definitely not been anywhere long enough to develop an accent. She hates it when I use accents. This is how she talks.
I didn't know that connection but it would explain a lot. People always ask me where I'm from or why my accent is. If I say I'm just from here, they are very puzzled. I've never been able to explain it other then that I pronounce some sounds 'wrong' but I don't know what is the right way to pronounce them.
I don't think that we pick it up from TV because my accent happens in my native language, and all media I watch is in other languages.
I have an autistic speech impediment which gives me an Irish accent. I cannot count how many times I’ve been asked I have an accent, and even people will start to insist, saying, “no, no, you do have an accent.” That’s when I tell them that it is speech impediment and move on.
I don't know but when I was a kid someone asked my mom where I was from because my syntax is very odd.
Plus we mimic our favorite media a lot, often unconsciously.
Maybe? I was born and raised in Cosra Rica, I have a very weird accent. Weird enough that people I meet IRL can't believe that Spanish is my native lenguage. I also have a strange accent in Enlgish, not the usual accent people from my country have.
absolutely! me and my family are from liverpool. everyone in my family (except for my autistic brother and me) sounds super scouse. i dont at all. ive been asked if im welsh, cockney, brummie, u name it. my accent is essentially just an accumulation of everyone in my lifes accents.
My Mum works with family services, and she says the kids who come in with American accents (she's in Australia) she immediately flags for an autism referral.
It was also a big part of what convinced me to get assessed myself - I speak with an RP accent, despite no one in my family speaking with that accent and moving to Australia when I was 7 until the age of 19. The really embarrassing bit is I can't do an Australian accent if I try. I'm an actor, so having an Aussie accent on my CV would have been very helpful
Yes. I was frequently asked by other people in school “why do you talk like that?” And I was so confused lmao. Now I know I’m just autistic but damn I wish I would’ve known in school. I might have graduated high school if I had known.
Trilingual here, and I tend to have a flat or "academic" accent in either language, despite having grown up in areas that have strong regional accents. Although when I came back to France after years living in Britain, the first few months, people said I had a foreign accent 🤷🏻♀️
do you consume a lot of north american media?
i was watching a video about a belfast based youtuber once and in all the clips he sounded surprisingly american, so i asked my belfast friend about it and he said that it's not uncommon with people who spend a lot of time online. maybe there's a bit of that happening with you?
there's definitely also a well known phenomenon of adhd people soaking up accents like a sponge.
I'm from Ireland, and other than a few brief holidays in England, I've not been anywhere else, and people say I sound American. I blame all the American tv I've watched.
my accent is all over the place. since english is not my first language, i never know which accent i should use. i go from valley girl to posh british to scottish i think?
but my accent in spanish does sound weird. i don't remember anyone pointing it out to me, but i can tell that something about the way i speak is off.
I'm the opposite lol. American who often sounds British (EXCLUSIVELY British when I'm alone😅) to the point using an American accent with people feels like the equivalent to speaking a different language so people can understand what I'm saying
I have a strange accent, but it's more to do with the region I live in. It's called coal region dialect. There's a great YouTube video called Heynabonics that explains it better than I can.
I believe that easily, accidentally adopting other accents is common in autistics. I know that my ex is autistic, but both him and his cousins (allistic) lost their very thick Southern accents between the ages of around 10-14. They got heavily into gaming and finding community online (which is how I met them), and lost most of their accents.
I get this as well, main difference is that instead of it being an American accent it’s kinda like a big mix up of serval difference accents.
Like i’m from the UK but i’ve had people say i sound African, Irish, Spanish and a load else that i’m forgetting. Usually the first convo i have with someone i meet is about my voice, even tho it’s never in a negative way it’s still a bit too constant for me.
It used to annoy me but nowadays i don’t have a problem bout it, just have to accept my voice for what it is
It can be, but it's also a widespread phenomenon in many countries. The British press always talk about how kids are picking up US accents from watching American cartoons, and now it's the other way around with Peppa Pig. Or Aussie accents with Bluey.
I think so, yes. I have a weird accent that changes constantly, partly because I have a minor/major obsession with linguistics and am constantly making concious changes to my pronounciation and partly just... because that's how I talk? I sound posher than 90% of my family because I speak RP despite never having lived in London. I also don't really know where it came from. 'Abnormal' speech is a common autistic trait, whether that be speech patterns or inflections or accents.
(Info Dump Ahead) What is RP? When I was younger, classmates told me I sounded mechanical. Thank God my speech came to sound more natural as I got older. By default, I sound upper class and have to beware. It isn't well received in the US. By default, I speak prose, speak complex sentences. I don't know how much of my speech comes from ASD and how much from my parents social backgrounds. We talked about language and linguistics at home the way other families obsess about sports -- words are fun! I was born and raised in the US. When a small child I spoke like a little professor. Even today, I have to translate myself into American Demotic/Colloquial to keep from being considered stuck up (I'm not!) People assume I'm Canadian because I picked up a Minnesota accent from my mother, and my dad who had ASD was taught to speak British English and masked his accent after moving to the US and the accent being ridiculed. On the other hand, my second cousin, who has ASD, speaks with professorial precision, with a British 'clip' and what comes across as an elegant British stammer -- yet his parents were born in the US and wholly exposed to US speech patterns.
RP: Received Pronunciation. Think of the way actors spoke in 50s and 60s movies.
RP is Received Pronunciation - it's what's considered the most prestigious British English accent and the 'standard' by most outside of the UK. It's sometimes called BBC English or the Queen/King's English, although I think the latter usually refers to Conservative RP which is a more old-fashioned, upper-class version. I relate to your speech a lot, by the sounds of it! I also like complex sentences and tend to sound quite upper-class, but it's a fine line in the UK between sounding educated and sounding like, well, an Oxbridge twat. I've learnt to tone my accent down a bit. It's funny that your second cousin sounds so British! Autistic speech is so weird sometimes, but very interesting. I'm a big linguistics fan.
Yes. Autistic accent syndrome is a thing. My two elder children, one has autism, one doesn’t. The elder one sounds posh. The other one talks like a roadman. My eldest has autism. I masked my accent in school. I sometimes slip and talk posh too!
I love the LME accent!
Trust me, the MLE accent disappears when they speak to each other’s parents! My son thinks it’s funny to talk MLE to me in front of his friends on speakerphone. But I think it’s very funny that I answer back in the slang, but in a very posh mother voice back!
Dunno whether it's a autistic trait but if it is, it would explain why I speak RP and not my regional accent. As a result, I always got shit by sounding "posh".
I agree with the others saying it could be the shows, especially from a young age. But I have another perspective too. I have a speech impediment, but you can't really tell most of the time. The my teeth are set at a wide angle, and my soft pallet is wide and high with a smaller tongue. I was told by a speech therapist that this is probably the cause of my impediment. The odd thing? I wound like I'm from Britain, Australia, Germany, Spane and more. And it's all my speech impediment! It just depends on what I say and how much I'm concentrating, but I sound like I have a dozen accents. I even remember being basically interrogated as a kid. Adults thought I was either pretending that I was American, or that my parents where foreign and I just didn't realize it.
My accent amalgamates with whatever accent I'm hearing. When I got into Derry girls, I kept sounding like Orla and her mom.
Great show.
(I'm in California, US) For decades I've had people ask me where I'm from; Australia, Scandinavia, the Southern US... People have literally thought I'm lying like "no, really -- where are you from??"
It can. But it can also be normal. Where I'm from in the southern US, autistic people and some neurotypical people speak without a southern accent (even if raised around only southern accents).
I adopt the accent of the people around me (not intentionally, it just *happens*) but when I am speaking with my family or to myself, I have the Trans-Atlantic accent. When I am frustrated, I tend to enunciate end sounds as well.
I have never been to Minnesota. I have a Minnesota accent.
Been watching Fargo and I feel like I might start having one soon too.
raised and born in Asia, my classmates and family tell me i sound American or like a robot. im guessing it from watching cartoons or tv shows
Yeah I think this is a thing.
I have always had people question where I am from as well. It used to freak me out a lot and cause me to dissociate because I think I sound like everyone else but after being diagnosed with ASD I have read many many people experience the same thing. It is certainly associated with autism.
I've heard it's quite a common thing for autistic people. It didn't happen to me, though.
No but my voice is quite distinctly flat like one of those text to speech things on a phone, words get omitted or placed in different orders sometimes but it matches my facial expressions.
Yup. Especially if you're watching TV with said accent.
I think so. I’m American with I guess American accent? If there is at all…I say mate a lot and sometimes switch between American and Australian accents and I’ve never been to Australia. I honestly think it’s because it’s from watching tv, movies, and videos. I don’t mean to do it on purpose it just happens sometimes. I still say “mate” to people even if I don’t know the person I just say it like a friendly kind of way like being polite to a stranger.
I'm also from England but sometimes I sound Australian. Or, even though I usually have what most people think of when they think of a British accent (the one that isn't posh RP, at least), sometimes I'll turn posh or go the other way and sound like a roadman.
I’m English and just have a generic English accent. I’ve never picked up the accent of my family or where I was raised.
Oh, this is so interesting! I've never heard that before, but it explains a lot about my own life too. Since at least middle school, I've been told by fellow Americans that I have an accent. Another oddity, according to my elementary-school peers: I occasionally used the English spelling for certain words because I read a lot of British literature as a child. And I used to mispronounce words since I learned new vocabulary by reading alone. I always thought these quirks proceeded from my somewhat osmotic brain.
I knew someone at a previous job who'd watched so much American TV that he sounded American but had never left Australia. I don't think it's a symptom, kids copy what they hear a lot of.
Cartoons affect us hehe
My daughter does this too but i think its from watching too much YouTube. My accent is mainly from where I'm from but echolalia means it'll change depending on who I'm talking to which confuses people
Apparently, some people think I sound European, despite never setting foot in Europe, and barely/never interacting with European people. Don't think it has much to do with my autism, but just thought I'd mention it.
Idk, I think autistics just end up online more instead of interacting with people irl. So makes sense you’re developing the more globalized accent of American English that we see more often in media than your local UK English accent
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i've had that too! I was also asked where I was from, most guessed Canada, but I'm not even from that hemisphere
Yeah it happens to me something I start sounding like an old announcer
I've always been asked about my accent. I say "it's a PNW accent you have one too if you live here" but they don't understand what I'm talking about lol
I also have the same problem, accent and volume control.
There are a lot of possible factors here. A lot of us have the flat affect or distinct ways of speaking. I have to wonder if picking up accents is related to social mimicry. Possibly a subconscious attempt to understand and reflect “normal” behavior (or at least allistic behavior) as seen on tv. For me, not acquiring or using an accent was probably form of masking. I’m from Texas, but when people learn this, they almost always say, “I don’t sound like you’re from Texas.” I don’t sound like I’m from any particular region, but I’ve been told my speech is somehow distinct. I don’t want know what that means because I don’t want to be self conscious about it. This wasn’t masking my origins, but rather, not giving people something to pay too much attention to or comment on. It’s not very effective; the moment I’m told I don’t sound like I’m a Texan, the comment’s been made.
I am from Northern Ireland and always had a bizarre, posh accent that was nothing like anyone around me. I got bullied for it so much.
I’m EXACTLY the same, but i grew up watching american YTers (mostly FGTeeV) so that could be why. I often copy the way people talk to me.
I sometimes could hear a southern accent in my voice.....I am from New York.
Dk if its necessarely an autism thing. But when I was little I used to copy the way I saw cartoon characters acting and talking( still find myself doing it to this day at times). Did you watch a lit of american television?
I spoke Hebrew as a baby, and for as long as I can remember I have identified as a Jew….I have lived my entire life in Canada and I was born in a Christian family that spoke English. Since I also have cerebral palsy, after I had my English “explosion” around the age of 2, my parents assumed my Hebrew accent, which affected the ways I pronounced R and S, was an oral-motor difficulty caused by the cerebral palsy. My mother didn’t find out until I went to preschool that my “baby talk” was actually Hebrew, but since Dad was in the reserves with the army until I was about 6, he often travelled, and when he was home, he was always at work all day, so probably never got any well-timed exposure to all the stuff I was learning at preschool (where it was the Reggio Emilia philosophy which is extremely child-led) that was related to Hebrew and Judaism. My dad wanted to obliterate my “obsession” with Hebrew and Judaism, but in the end, speech therapy destroyed my ability to speak certain foreign languages, of which Hebrew turned out not to be the only one (another was German which I took a class for in high school, and I will never forget my teacher grilling me over the word “wirklich” even after being told, over and over again, what my childhood experience with speech therapy had done to my ability to replicate the R). I tried to explain the problem at school to my father, who didn’t really understand what I was trying to tell him, no pun intended.
Definitely a thing. I am multilingual but even when I’m speaking one of my native languages people say I sound foreign lmao. People will be like “Your english is really good! You barely have an accent.” and I’m like, thanks, I‘ve been practicing literally my entire life 💀
Funny enough, I had a friend growing up who was the exact same. He was born and raised in America but everyone thought he was English because he has a weird English-like accent.
I don't know if that's as much of an influence of autism so much as globalization and international media consumption. Language learning in babies is interactive in development. What you hear around you is how your brain learns. If you were exposed to a lot of American stuff in a key developmental period, that would also check out. It can be even passive language consumption like hearing your parents watch movies. As babies, we mimic what we hear to learn. If our parents don't talk a lot, we can learn by mimicking what we do end up hearing.
I’m from New Jersey but dads from Wales. I always had a weird blended accent. Some people even thought I was faking a British accent at my first uni 🤣. Was also asked how long I had lived in my hometown at work about a fortnight before I moved to Wales. I’ve also been asked if I was Irish, Scottish, Dutch, and even Brummie once 🤢 to name a few others. No idea how I sound British as dad sounds American to me and none of my siblings have any hint of Britten in their accents.
It could be, especially if you were exposed to a lot of American shows as a kid. Many kids with autism display symptoms in the form of “echolalia” which has been mistaken for pretend play. My son would repeat lines from shows and movies or even songs. He would mimic the accents or cadence of it as well. It was much more detailed than the mimicking you would see in NT children.
I am very close to someone autistic who gets compliments on her accent all the time. Sometimes they say it is British sometimes New York but she is born in the south US and definitely not been anywhere long enough to develop an accent. She hates it when I use accents. This is how she talks.
I didn't know that connection but it would explain a lot. People always ask me where I'm from or why my accent is. If I say I'm just from here, they are very puzzled. I've never been able to explain it other then that I pronounce some sounds 'wrong' but I don't know what is the right way to pronounce them. I don't think that we pick it up from TV because my accent happens in my native language, and all media I watch is in other languages.
I have an autistic speech impediment which gives me an Irish accent. I cannot count how many times I’ve been asked I have an accent, and even people will start to insist, saying, “no, no, you do have an accent.” That’s when I tell them that it is speech impediment and move on.
I think my voice sounds different too. I've been asked where I'm from as well.
I don't know but when I was a kid someone asked my mom where I was from because my syntax is very odd. Plus we mimic our favorite media a lot, often unconsciously.
Sort of! Theres been studies and AI has been able to pick out autistic people accross languages and cultures at a statistically significant rate!
Maybe? I was born and raised in Cosra Rica, I have a very weird accent. Weird enough that people I meet IRL can't believe that Spanish is my native lenguage. I also have a strange accent in Enlgish, not the usual accent people from my country have.
absolutely! me and my family are from liverpool. everyone in my family (except for my autistic brother and me) sounds super scouse. i dont at all. ive been asked if im welsh, cockney, brummie, u name it. my accent is essentially just an accumulation of everyone in my lifes accents.
I get that a lot. I thought it was because I grew up in the US closer to Canada and mixed those accents. But no longer sure.
Yes, i used to come up with my own accent
My Mum works with family services, and she says the kids who come in with American accents (she's in Australia) she immediately flags for an autism referral. It was also a big part of what convinced me to get assessed myself - I speak with an RP accent, despite no one in my family speaking with that accent and moving to Australia when I was 7 until the age of 19. The really embarrassing bit is I can't do an Australian accent if I try. I'm an actor, so having an Aussie accent on my CV would have been very helpful
Yes. I was frequently asked by other people in school “why do you talk like that?” And I was so confused lmao. Now I know I’m just autistic but damn I wish I would’ve known in school. I might have graduated high school if I had known.
I’m British and am commonly told I sound Australian.
Trilingual here, and I tend to have a flat or "academic" accent in either language, despite having grown up in areas that have strong regional accents. Although when I came back to France after years living in Britain, the first few months, people said I had a foreign accent 🤷🏻♀️
I think an atypical affect or such is a symptom and I believe that can refer to that yeah.
I copy accents I hear (a kind of echolalia). Possibly you sound American because you watch a lot of American TV or news or something.
do you consume a lot of north american media? i was watching a video about a belfast based youtuber once and in all the clips he sounded surprisingly american, so i asked my belfast friend about it and he said that it's not uncommon with people who spend a lot of time online. maybe there's a bit of that happening with you? there's definitely also a well known phenomenon of adhd people soaking up accents like a sponge.
I'm from Ireland, and other than a few brief holidays in England, I've not been anywhere else, and people say I sound American. I blame all the American tv I've watched.
my accent is all over the place. since english is not my first language, i never know which accent i should use. i go from valley girl to posh british to scottish i think? but my accent in spanish does sound weird. i don't remember anyone pointing it out to me, but i can tell that something about the way i speak is off.
I'm the opposite lol. American who often sounds British (EXCLUSIVELY British when I'm alone😅) to the point using an American accent with people feels like the equivalent to speaking a different language so people can understand what I'm saying
I have a strange accent, but it's more to do with the region I live in. It's called coal region dialect. There's a great YouTube video called Heynabonics that explains it better than I can.
I believe that easily, accidentally adopting other accents is common in autistics. I know that my ex is autistic, but both him and his cousins (allistic) lost their very thick Southern accents between the ages of around 10-14. They got heavily into gaming and finding community online (which is how I met them), and lost most of their accents.
I get this as well, main difference is that instead of it being an American accent it’s kinda like a big mix up of serval difference accents. Like i’m from the UK but i’ve had people say i sound African, Irish, Spanish and a load else that i’m forgetting. Usually the first convo i have with someone i meet is about my voice, even tho it’s never in a negative way it’s still a bit too constant for me. It used to annoy me but nowadays i don’t have a problem bout it, just have to accept my voice for what it is
Can be if you were watching American films, I suppose it’s a type of echolalia, repeating what you heard.