Why not make language your interest???

Post Reply New Topic

Specialist interests find me not the other way around.

I used to think my dad was autistic. Turns out he's not but he does have a lot of the same traits.

He's got a major interest in languages.

Again, I'm not sure he picked that. I think he just gravitated to it.

Being interested in anthropology and other languages has actually helped me mask and understand people better. If those are something an aspie is interested in I think pursuing those interests is a good idea and not a waste of time.

Not all of us are well-suited for STEM fields though. If someone is more likely to make bigger contributions in a HASS field, shouldn't they focus on where they will be able to achieve the most?

Good point.

I think language and linguistics are absolutely fascinating. But that's just me. It's not something you can just decide to be interested in. Either you are or you're not.

It makes sense to be well-rounded.

It makes sense to have both STEM and HASS knowledge----like Leonardo Da Vinci.

Like KT67 said, special interests (used to) find me. Once someone asked me why I was obsessed with something and I said "I don't know." Then they asked me if I loved it that much and I said "not really, I'm just so obsessed." It's like the obsession got a hold of me, like drugs. Some people on drugs don't want to be on drugs and don't even like drugs but still can't live without them, and it was the same with me with obsessions. Nothing else was important, not even my school grades, compared to the obsession I had.

These days I don't really have obsessions or special interests, instead I find interests, they don't find me any more.

Some Aspergers are above average at language...!

For most people, this should be a side interest, necessary for communication. You also need something to say.

Yes! Necessary for communication?

It would solve nearly every difficulty the people with Aspergers have?

That level of communication would be overwhelming other personal realities. The trouble I'm having is not so much what I say, it is that those I talk to are full of other ideas, and may not be able to handle the complexity I wish to describe anyway.

Please explain to me how this would solve sensory issues that are common with having ASD. I fail to see how having said interests would really help dealing with problems with bright sunlight, food textures or very loud noises.

Languages when younger was one of my interest's I was very bad at.

Never mind me being 4 1/2 years late reaching verbal hood and me being a social potato amongst tall blooming social trees all my life - I could never remember information on linguistics, yet could remember full text books of information on science.

My development was not a social or verbal development, it was a cognitive sensory development, after Kanners before and after verbal hood at 5 - and I'm also sure I had childhood onset schizophrenia. Most teachers have noted that my text on work was 'intelligent' but in word salad and nonsensical and friends always had to correct me on my mispronunciations of english words. My mum said I couldn't speak when I was younger because my tongue was too short, speech therapy didn't work.... I know I had Kanners and a regression when younger and in fact a short tongue was not the reason for my lack of verbal and social skills.

One day I will learn arabic. It will just take time and practise. Good luck to anyone else hoping to learn languages!

[Here is a Japanese to English glossary: http://www.freeinfosociety.com/media/pdf/4580.pdf] I like learning of this.

If your implying that it might make me a better oral communicator, your wrong. There are biological blocks that stop this happening, nothing to do with education. Possibly to do with speed of neurons & working memory issues.

Not sure, but I suspect the student of language would find a lot of it pretty useless for general communication. So many people get away with butchering the English language these days that to learn about its proper use only really helps you to communicate with the intelligentsia. Everybody else will likely think there's something the matter with you. Though it might provide a good filter, repelling people who don't think very carefully and attracting those who do. On the other hand I sometimes notice that individuals with academically poor language skills sometimes say things very simply and so communicate more directly than a professor of language could. So I don't really know whether it would be a good idea or not to get very involved with the subject. I guess it can be a useful communication tool but it's only one tool of many.

it grows on me
i went as far away from languages in hs as i could, after latin and greek and never ending warfare campaigns
i was so not into that & much too much learning by heart, which i never had to learn to get to results
what's learned at school, keep your mouth shut and never be clever don't even try
i choose the science route, still had to do dutch english german and french

spread out everywhere, maybe i should have gone to a creative way,
but i was not so much interested in the upper/middleupper-wives concentrate in creative things, you know the thing


thing with languages, people make noises and all that
but irl it's not a marketable thing
(its who you know, not what you know)