Is hyperfocus the foundation of autistic ability?

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I've known for awhile that I can completely dive into an interest for hours and digest information at a rate of speed that many cannot. I've been compared to a "sponge for information" on many occasions. While I know that it is not exclusive to the autism spectrum, I get the feeling that many who are autistic have an easier time doing it.

I'd like to suggest that being able to hyper-focus like this (combined with non-debilitating hypersensitivities in some cases) is the foundation for autistic-based abilities.

I have absolute pitch (the ability to identify notes on a musical scale outside of context). It is commonly considered a "gift" in the musical community, and it is believed to be found in about 1 in 10,000 people. Why certain people have absolute pitch isn't well known, but they do know that early interest in tonal structures seems to be a prerequisite. Interestingly, absolute pitch is 5 times more commonly found in cultures where the language is more based on tonal position (certain Asian languages, for instance). Additionally, one in 20 autistics have it, and a whopping 50% of people who are blind from birth have it! So it seems that nurture is far more dominant factor than nature. (Apologies for the lack of citations. I'm not at a place I can look them up right now. If you like, I can provide them later.)

Then again, if your nature predisposes you to focus intensely on subjects that captivate your interest beyond the capacity of your peers, you are likely to ultimately develop different abilities, or, at the very least, a fundamentally different approach to learning and discovery. A fundamentally different approach will beget fundamentally different thoughts in many cases.

This can be both good and bad. If, for instance, thinking differently is valued in your workplace (and the deficiency in social skills doesn't get in your way), you can fairly easily become a pioneer or a thought leader. If it's not, and playing the "political game" is more important than thought leadership, you will most likely crash and burn at that job. I guess in some ways, you could say that thinking differently raises the stakes.

Thoughts? Fundamentally different thoughts?

EDIT: Changed "extrasensory perception" to "hypersensitivity" because that's what I meant. Not things such as ESP, clairvoyance, etc.

Thirty years ago my best friend of the time commented on this very aspect of my personality. He admired the way I could focus on a topic at the exclusion of everything else and probe it to the absolute depths of analysis. He also said it was my greatest weakness too - and rebuked me at the time for not even noticing two attractive girls who had just walked into the bar and had been looking in our direction!

Hyperfocus is still my greatest ability and my strongest weakness. It is great for analysing anything technical such as software or physics; but a disadvantage in relating to other people and their wide range of social interactions.

Well, lately Ive begun to think that our sensory issues may be the cause. Think about it, if you're taking in 2 or more times the phsyical information (light, sound, taste, touch, smell) of course something is gonna get sacrificed. At the same time, since were taking in more information that could be to the benefit of our focus. As an example, consider a simple social situation (talking with someone). With NTs, the focus is spread evenly among the following (apologies if i forgot something): Listening (what is being said), eye movement, body language, facial expression, speech, sight, hearing (what else is going on), eye contact. For those in the spectrum, our emphasis is on Listening, hearing, sight, speech. The rest to us is often trivial, and takes up too much of our focus.

So, assuming we put a total of 16 points to those attributes (2 points per), we in the ASDs have 3-4 points in the listening, hearing, sight, and speech alone. So, since our physical object interpretation is enhanced, we put more into something of quantitative interest than NTs can.

Yeah, I think so. Since I moved from my parents' house I've started having the possibility to have entire days alone, during the period I was unemployed I reached my max heights of happines and efficacy, it was just like the outer world didn't exist. All I did was focusing on my interests, my mood was great and I felt fully accomplished. That's why I hate all the situations where I get interruptions.

"Foundation"? No, I don't believe so.
Perhaps a common characteristic of, but certainly not the foundation of.
I am on the spectrum but have the attention span of a goldfish.

That's so funny because I was just getting frustrated with myself for being online for 3 1/2 hours this morning and have not accomplished anything I intended to complete online yet, lol. I am intent in finding information on a particular subject right now, and cannot put the computer down until I find it! Frigging hyperfocusing! Take care...

Nancy

agreed, now i feel blessed to have this gift of focusing on one (or several things). it is very precious in accelerated times with constant bombardment of quasi-information from different media (tvs, internet, magazines, books). it is going to be only worse in the future and just very focused people will be able to achieve something.

Ditto, absolute pitch is a nice gift to have.

Being on the spectrum means we can be great leaders, we maintain great non-partisanship, outside of the box thinking, and a low threshold for needing rewards or meriting positive reinforcement.

Hyperfocus AND lack of filter.

But now the REAL brainbender:
Does hyperfocus re-arrange our logic brains to be extremely lineair and hyper-efficiently wired(Yes I haz proof), or does the fact the strange, but awesome and dense way our brains are built make us prone to hyperfocusing? Heh!

Let's just please remember that hyper-focus isn't a characteristic that ALL people on the spectrum share.

Being hyperfocused is definitely my number one Aspie characteristic. My special interests and the obsessiveness that goes along with them define my AS and my personality. A friend of mine has a daughter with AS, and they figured out I had AS before I was ever even diagnosed. After I got my diagnosis, I asked how they knew that I was an Aspie, and they said that I reminded them a lot of their daughter, particularly the "hyperfocusness."
-OddDuckNash99-