Sarah is not Autistic....
her situation is like this book I read called Among The Hidden very good and sad book. It's about a boy whose parents were not allowed to expose him to the world. The only thing he could do was stay in one place which was the attic which was his bedroom 
. If he was seen I think he would be killed. Due to his parents keeping him inside the house through his life he had no idea what the world was like. People who were never exposed to the real world tend to have their own reality and when exposed to people they feel they can be friends and trust that person. This boy in the book wanted to have friends and explore the real world but his parents would not let them. So yea Autism is not what Sarah has she's just among the hidden because her father is too protective of her. Hanging with Clem puts her at risk about knowing what reality is. That's why Sarah said she never seen a kid her age. She's inferring Clem's her age but really has no clue. She has not been exposed to the real world so she wouldn't know. There's three stages to Autism. Communication, Behavioral, and Repetitive. Sarah doesn't have repetitive or behavioral Autism. People are inferring she has Communication Autism because the way she communicates with people. She might not have Autism she has good communication. She may have ADD though or Anxiety affiliated with shyness and fear of her dad and people. I could be wrong though XD
Comments
That's an interesting theory. I also thought she conversed a little too well for someone with Autism when I played the episode, but I'm not that familiar with the degrees and nuances of the term. But if what you are saying turns out to be correct, he must have been sheltering her from the world even long before the manure hit the fan. In that case, he's strikes me as a really creepy dude!
But I was just thinking another thing. If it turns out that Sarah is autistic, then it puts Carlos' behaviour towards Clementine in a whole other light, doesn't it. I think I also would be pretty sceptical towards strangers living in my house in an anarchistic zombie world with a mentally underdeveloped teenaged daughter upstairs. I think that tought is kinda interesting. I guess that the most likely (and boring) background for them is that he is a loving and overprotective father.
Anyways, I still think the Sarah/Carlos story seems like the most interesting from the new characters. Can't wait for Episode 2!
Why did this get bumped -_-
Except as far as we know she's only been excessively sheltered since the apocalypse started, which would've been approx. 2 years ago, so her weirdness wouldn't be a product of environmental conditioning.
Also Carlos talks about how she's "different" and that she's all he has left, suggesting something inherently odd about her and that her isolation was dependent on him losing everything else, rather than a long-standing scenario that existed before zombies.
So there's still probably something bio-chemically or developmentally wrong with her.
I really like Sarah as a character. There's a lot of potential for her.
Almost similar to Clem's story in Season 1: Growing up in a world of the dead. Only with Sarah she's being sheltered from it all, and will be in for a shock when she finds out what it's really like.
Yeah, I was spinning on the theory that her peculiarness was a result of long standing isolation for some dark reasons. But I guess there is little evidence to back that up
Why did your post get downvoted?I agree with you,she has a lot of potential.
What happens when people try to share their thoughts and ideas
A lot of people have a grudge against me for putting my answers in more detail than they do.
I'm used to it
Good thread
It's like most people who assumed she's Autistic don't even know what it means. Good theory
Thank you
This is the book Among The Hidden I was talking about. Now notice the setting is in the woods in a cabin just like Sarah in the game. My Theory could be correct. Sarah's situation is based on this book. The boy in the book is Luke. He is just like Sarah in many ways.
Autistic or not, she doesn't behave correctly for her age: Clementine, who is around 10 years old, acts more mature than her, and she is fifteen. The combination of being lonely with no interaction with others beside her group and a lack of understanding for the world outside of her room and books, she could come off... strange.
I like your theory, but in my opinion, she's a high functioning autistic. ("If she finds out how the world is, she will cease to function" - Carlos); this is a bit bias of me because I'm also high functioning autistic. I guess she's kinda like a Rorschach test; we all look at her and see different things.
If she stays alive I think over time with some help she will grow I don't think she has any form of autism.
Though she may have some types of "learning disablites", I have learning disabilities and some of what she does seems similar to what I have.
There was a girl in my class that was kinda sensible like her, she was like any other normal girl just that she was way more sensible, later i learned that it was cause her father tried to rape her, i don't think that Carlos tried to rape Sarah but maybe other traumatic experience like that might have triggered it..Also i think she had a mental condition but i'm not really sure, she was very reserved about it.
Edit: i forgot to mention that her physical appearence was very similar to Sarah's
Honestly Jill i dont know why the hell you got downvotes, your theory is awesome! Sarah is not autistic, i know someone really dear and close to me who is, even though he is, he is really smart like any other kid his age and his grades are like the best (9.7) so even if Sarah was autist that doesn't mean she can't survive, she is/was protected in excess, always thinking "ill be fine, nothing will ever go wrong" she grew with that idea so when bad things hit she cease to function, but i have no doubt she can be good at survival, with Clem's help she will be fine. Nice theory honestly grats ^^
I created this account just because I stumbled upon this thread here. As far as I'm concerned, the chances of her having autism are slim. I would know because I have autism myself. I say her chances are slim because to be able to function completely normally with a few "kinks" here and there is almost unheard of, almost. I go through day-to-day life without people even having a second thought on whether I'm autistic or not and I am extremely thankful and lucky to be this well off. In fact, if it hadn't been for when I was younger, nobody might have known I have autism at all. This being said, there might still be a chance that Sarah here has autism but can function almost flawlessly with it like I can. Also, to add on to one of the other comments I've seen here, I've grown up on a different 3-leveled system of autism-diagnosis. Low-functioning, mid-functioning, and high-functioning. This is all rated based on one's behavior, communication, interactions, ect. Sarah expresses what can be described as forced anti-socialism, anxiety, and maybe even some stress. Out of these, anxiety is the only thing that can point to autism but cannot be on its own. Things we WOULD be looking for are normal anti-socialism, decreased (or worse) basic motor controls (bad at doing normal tasks), poor communication, bad communication skills (there is a difference), ADD and/or ADHD, being bipolar... and the list does in fact go on. With this in mind folks, I think we can be about 95% sure that Sarah doesn't have any autism in her. Trust me on this, you can say that I'm some kind of expert on this kind of diagnosis.