My husband and I are both on the spectrum. Some things we have in common: As children, both of us were very slow to develop physical coordination, among the last of our age group to be able to do things like throw a ball, ride a bike, climb a tree, and such. But then when we started school, in both cases the school system considered starting us out in the second grade instead of the first (this is two different states; we never met until our 40's) but then changed their minds about it because we were unpopular and ostracized. Our schools blamed that on our "lack of social skills" instead of figuring out that other kids were bullying us. We both have some social anxiety now, but his is worse.

Now, what I want to know is, he has trouble discerning tones of voice. He can hear loud versus soft volume, or high versus low pitch, but a sharp edge in anybody's voice, his own or others, will fly right past him.

When he's tired, he might bite somebody's head off in a grump. If that ends up hurting somebody's feelings, he'll immediately want to defend his choice of words, because he thinks the words are what they took offense to. If I try to tell him, "It wasn't what you said. It was your tone of voice," it doesn't compute. He'll answer, sounding confused, "There was no tone of voice."

Of course there is always a tone of voice, but he doesn't hear it. It's like being color blind, only with hearing instead of with vision. I, on the other hand, am almost hypersensitive to tone of voice. I'll pick up subtle sarcasm or mocking, or something like that, and they'll deny they meant it that way and tell me it was my imagination. Then later it will turn out to be true.

Which of those is usually the spectrum trait? Not hearing tone of voice at all, or hearing it with bat-like radar?