> curious, did you start reading at a very early age? I started around 3

I did! I also learnt to read at 3. Your observation was really impressive.

I've never thought about it being the cause of my weird quirks, I thought it was actually another consequence/symptom of being wired a bit different, but maybe you are right. Have you ever met anyone else who learnt to read early? Do they also behave like that?

I don't know if I'm in the spectrum (I suspect I do, but I don't want to know). In any case, if I do, then I'm also a functioning one.

> if you’re literally sounding out every word in your head you’d never be able to keep up with whatever it is I do

Another possibility is that they overestimate how much they use their inner monologue without realizing. For example, I really doubt they think "time to move the left leg, now the right leg, now the left..." whenever they walk. Maybe they just don't enter into that "mode" as often as us