question about ASD special interests

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Can autistic people have a few different special interests?

Can they come and go? / can they be short-lived?

How intense does an interest have to be to be considered "special"?

When you go to the library, do you sometimes browse the shelves covering lots of different Dewey decimal numbers and see lots of interesting topics you could read about, or would everything be boring / irrelevant, except for the books on one really specific topic?

Also, if people start telling you you probably have ASD, would learning about ASD become a new special interest alongside your old ones?

I am wondering because I've been told I probably have ASD and I'm wondering if my "special interests" are the type that an autistic person could have.

I think this is one of those things that has a wide range depending on the person.

I have a two special interests that I've had since childhood, and then a couple of shorter-lived interests that come and go.

When I go to the library I can browse the shelves and I might see one or two things that could become a new special interest.

When I started researching ASD it did become a special interest, but I don't know if that necessarily generalizes to everyone.

As for the type of special interests an autistic person could have, I think that has a wider range than most people think as well. One of my longest special interests is theatre. Some doctors have told me that theatre is a "weird" interest for an autistic person to have. These are usually doctors inexperienced in ASD. What they don't know is that my interest in theatre stems from not being able to hold conversations with people as a child. My dad would write me scripts, and then I eventually started writing scripts for myself, and that eventually broadened into writing theatre scripts.

I've had special interests my whole life, they usually last a couple years each. However, my current one (Doctor Who, the spinoffs, and the actors on the show) has been going on for almost five years. Some of mine have subsided and some of them have been less intense, but lasted longer (if that makes any sense)

I'm not sure how intense they are for them to be "special", I think it varies from person to person. For me, I consider it a special interest if I collect stuff related to it, think about it and talk about it all the time, and spend a good chunk of my time doing stuff related to it, like reading fanfiction, drawing fanart, and just watching videos related to it.

I've probably had about five different special interests across my lifetime and I'm 23.

I haven't been to the library much lately, but I still find interest in a lot of books that aren't Doctor Who related. I like reading Manga and novels and books about crafting and baking.

I went through a short period of time where I would research Autism a lot, but it didn't last long. It was only one summer and I was between two special interests.

I can only speak for myself. What happens in my case isn't that I lose interest in things but that new things become the latest focus so the previous ones get less attention for a while. For example a couple of years ago I was studying cosmology, I still find it interesting of course but this year's obsession is learning to play the guitar. Three years ago I was trading and mining bitcoin, and studying how market trends work - I made a few quid doing that too. I also seem to be bipolar so the depression phase often ends all interests for a while, but it always goes away in the end and I'm used to it.

My special interests come and go and morph into other interests. Although the range of a that is still probably pretty narrow. I think a difference between a hobby and an autistic special interest, is a hobby is something a person does in their spare time. Whereas with autistic special interest, it's only thing one is interested in doing all the time.

I have a lot of different interests: cats, tennis (both watching and playing), history, literature, world geography and learning about different countries.

My interests probably cover the entire range of Dewey Decimal topics. I work at a library, so I know what topics are covered in what numerical range and where my favorite topics would be located. (Eg. cats-636..

Generally, my interests in certain topics lasted about six months. However, the information I gathered about my favorite topics are all stored in my memory.

I read quite a bit about medical and mental health topics, including autism/Asperger syndrome.

I would say many of my interests are fairly common, but more intense than what is typical.

I'll attempt to answer these to the best of my ability. These are just anecdotes from my own life so these may or may not apply to you, or you may or may not agree with them.

I usually have multiple interests going on at once; some are more intense than others.



Yes to both. My interests in Pokemon, Naruto and One Piece come and go every couple of months/years. My interests tend to last for several years at a time, so I'd have to say that my shortest-lived interest was the children's anime Hamtaro, which lasted only a couple of months.



This one is difficult to answer because it's hard for me to gauge just how intense a "typical" interest is. For example, my brother isn't on the spectrum (he was evaluated but the doctor ruled it out), but he has clocked in hundreds of hours of gameplay on his video games. Meanwhile I typically only play video games for a short while (~10 hrs total) but I can spend literally years daydreaming about the characters.



This one's really easy for me to answer: everything that isn't at least tangentially related to one of my interests is completely boring for me and I have little to no patience for them.



I've heard of this happening with other people on the spectrum sometimes, but it didn't personally happen to me.

Thank you all for the responses. It sounds like there's a lot of variety.

I'm a browser when I go to the library. I can get really excited at all the different topics there are to learn about,
so I don't think I have the very intense interests that are the only thing you can talk about, but I did have one nearly that intense at around age 11-13 (music was the only thing I would talk about in certain situations).

I think the ones I have that I would think of as "special interests" are ones that I get a lot of peace from when thinking about / engaging in. For example, if I have a stressful day, one of the things that will calm me down the most at the moment is if I read passages from my favourite language learning book, aloud (but when in public, under breath) - often while pacing. I love feeling the intonation and rhythm of the language.
Would this be considered a special interest?

Theatre sounds like a very interesting special interest.



Yay for libraries My favourite call numbers are in the 400s and the 780s.

edit: tried to fix up weird wording

I think it's definitely possible to have more than one special interest. The amount of interests would have to be limited though, since spending time on one interest implies that you can't spend time on another and it wouldn't be be logical to categorize an interest as "special" if you only spend time on it once in a while.

Interests may change every now and then but short-lived interests seem less common to me. My interests occasionally change as well, and sometimes a previous interest returns.

It's hard to say what makes an interest special. I think it isn't just the intensity but also the narrowness/specificity. For example, I enjoy soccer. I only watch soccer once every few weeks though, but I'm looking up soccer statistics nearly everyday, even those of players which I've never watched. When I think about it, it seems rather pointless but I find it interesting.

When I'm browsing the book shelves, I rarely come across something that strikes me as interesting. The stores usually don't have the kind of books I'm looking for, which are rather specific. I guess that's rather typical for people with ASD.

Since I got my diagnosis I have read a few books on ASD but I wouldn't call it a special interest. Sometimes I can go on for months without reading anything on autism at all.

A couple I've had since I was a child, but I also have short lived ones. For example, last year I was super into botany and gardening. I was constantly around my plants I grew, inspecting them every half hour.

According ot the criteria there should be no more than 1 or 2 "special" interests at a time but there is no telling how long they are supposed to last(and from my experience it can be anything from a few minutes to a few years). They just need to be "abnormal in intensity or focus".

For example when an autistic person persuades the interest they don't see anything whats going on around them and can't get distracted (abnormal focus). I had it as a young kid. They could yell, shout and "shoot" around and I didn't hear a thing - busy staring at a TV cartoon I couldn't even understand. They tried waving hands in front of me and my only reaction was moving so I can see the screen, they tried move me away and I threw a "tantrum".

Or they do so perseveratively(sp?). For example once I discovered some comics at school library when I were 12 I ended up borrowing 6 of them everyday (18 on Fridays) and I read the whole stock within 4 weeks. Normal students only borrowed one at time and returned them after a week and noone besides me read the whole stock.


I don't go to library anymore. But when I did I will browse random books while looking for something new or be only interested in the series I currently am obsessed with. If I am currently obsessed I wont be interested in other books. Unless the obsession is fading or they are fairly similar, especially if I just finished a "very, very interesting book" and feel strong "want more of it!" but can't read it anymore because I already read it 3 times in a row and have it all memorized.


It happened to me. But old interests faded then, to make a spot for "Asperger". I don't remember what it was exactly back then, probably thunderstorms and an online game.

I tend to have 1-2 special interest at a time, currently it is a genre of manga - not telling which one, lol - and MBTI but MBTI is fading and only blows up at times, it shares its time with a few almost normal interests, such as mobile phone tariffs(I'm not sure how it is called in English) and a "farm" online game.

My interests are getting normal past a few years.

I'm really interested in MBTI too. Which type are you? I'm an INTP.

I'm an INTJ although sometimes ISTJ.

But to add to the topic of this thread I usually only have one or two special interests at a time. For instance I have been into Martial Arts for the past few years but I've had several other special interests come and go during this period.
So right now it's mostly just Martial Arts & Chess but a few months ago it was Martial Arts and Clash Royal.

Usually when a special interests fades I still remain interested in it but the topic no longer can hold my focus as it once did (unless it comes back). For example I was obsessed with Doctor Who for a while and I still like Doctor who but I haven't gotten around to watching it for a long time. And the same goes for Star Trek, Minecraft, memorizing pi, SimCity, Maps, Geography, the Population of major City's, Death Note, 60s music, and... I'll stop there.

And yes when I learned about having ASD it became a special interests that comes and goes as well.

INTP as well. But with pretty strong Si.