HFA people and Aspies...still spectrum variation?

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I was just posting in a thread about "special interests" and wondered if certain things I'm into can still be "special interests", especially since there are serious things that take up time in my life and likely prevent me from being the "knows how many screws in a certain type of airplane" sort of person where my interests are concerned.

That fact got me wondering-
Is it possible for HFA people and Aspies to vary in how much the special interest symptom shows itself? If I'm actually on the spectrum, could my seemingly being very borderline lessen the influence of any special interest symptoms?

I think of HFA people and Aspies as being in a certain part of the spectrum, maybe you could say closer to NT, but even then would there still be some who just plain don't have the same extreme degree of knowledge of their interests as others do of theirs? Because in their case the special interest symptom isn't as strong?

I know "If you've met one Aspie, you've met ONE Aspie", usually meaning there are many variations in how symptoms manifest, and to what degree.

I just wasn't sure how far down the volume can be turned on a symptom before it just can't be counted as one any more...

This isn't coming out as clear as I'd hoped.

If anyone gets what I'm saying, please feel free to comment.

Oh, I think so, absolutely. One of my major special interests is and always has been music - not playing music (I once took guitar lessons for about a month and gave it up because my instructor wouldn't let me learn a song I liked, until I had mastered all the practice scales), certainly not writing music, for me it's recorded music, music players and recording devices and audio in general.

When I got my first job as a radio disc jockey at 15, and began to meet other people with similar interests, my Aspergian collecting fever was ignited and I spent three decades amassing a huge library of records and Cds, from the most sappy pop chart pablum, to obscure limited edition demo pressings by artists known only to a few hundred devoted fans.

I had a handful of friends that all worked in the same industry, all social misfits and obsessive collectors like myself and we would spend hours (facilitated by chemical social lubricants) talking and swapping information, sharing our newest musical discoveries, trading bits of trivia, traveling hundreds of miles to find rare collectibles in far flung resale shops - we were walking Rock Encylopedias. To this day, I would die in a house fire, running back and forth to save my precious music collection, rather than give up a single piece of it.

But life moves on, as it always does - those friends are all separated from me by many miles, my limited disability income hamstrings my purchasing power and I'm no longer working in an industry where access to the latest recorded music is free and virtually unlimited. So, while I still consider it one the biggest obsessive special interests of my life, I'm not able to keep collecting like I once did and a lot of the gargantuan data base of pop music facts and trivia lies dusty and unused in the back of my brain, more difficult to recall at will with each passing year.

However, all that music continues to play even now, in an immense playlist on the iPod connected to the Crosley retro-look radio a few feet behind me - at the moment, Gogi Grant's version of The Wayward Wind, which reached #1 in May of 1956. Next it could be John Lennon's Give Peace a Chance (#14 august of 1969) or No Doubt's Just a Girl (#23 April 1996) or an obscure album track like Cat Power's cover of Bob Dylan's Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again from October of 2007, or Black Sabbath or Black Label Society or Lil Wayne or Ludacris or Carly Rae Jepson or Psy.

I'm not buried in it or consumed by it in quite the way that I once was, but the interest ain't goin' anywhere.

I think it varies with each person. I've met NTs that seem to be more obsessive to me and Aspies who barely showed any signs of having a special interest. Special interests also seem to vary with age. All my long-term special interests have changed with age for me.

i think that the special interest Vary in how severe the sensory input is and how stressed out the person is. Autistic people have a special interest as a calming technique, its a structured, repetitive topic to think, write, or draw about, and is used to cope with a stressful life.

i know when i was Depressed in 2010, i would think, talk and draw sonic for HOURS on end! hours? sorry, i ment entire days. i would wake up, go to school (draw and talk about sonic at school) and go home and draw and talk about sonic on the internet, and when i slept, i would dream about sonic. and that would go on all day. so when i was sad about people bullying me at school and stressed about going back and forth to my mom and dads, i could turn to sonic. sonic saved me in a way.

Yes. Also in how it shows itself.

Also, technically special interests are not absolutely necessary for diagnosis (I don't know if this happens in practice, but that's the way it is on paper, unless I've misunderstood something). In the "Restricted, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities" category, the symptom criteria are:

In the DSM-4, special interests are 1 of 4 possible symptoms for both Autistic Disorder and Asperger's and you need 1/4. (links: Autistic Disorder criteria, Asperger's Syndrome criteria)

In the DSM-5, special interests are 1 of 4 possible symptoms for ASD and you need 2/4. (ASD criteria)

In the ICD-10, special interests are 1 of 5 possible symptoms for both Childhood Autism and Asperger's and you need 2/5. (ICD Green Book -- has criteria for Childhood Autism (F84.0) and Asperger's (F84.5). )




Yes, I think so.

Or because they don't focus on facts about their interest, but on something else -- like doing whatever the special interest is, or collecting it, or looking at it or listening to it.

Or because people vary in cognitive style (e.g. how they think/what they think about) and cognitive abilities (strengths, weaknesses, gifts/talents, limitations).

Or for other reasons I can't think of.

Last edited by animalcrackers on 02 Feb 2014, 12:02 am, edited 2 times in total.

I don't know enough about them to find a contrast. I can say that no two autistics are the same. So yeah; there's spectrum variation.

Thanks, guys!

That 1 of 4 and 2 of 4 thing got my attention too. Very much appreciate that being included.

I found an Autism/Aspergers site regarding spectrum people in IRELAND the other day, and copy and pasted their text material about how to ID an Aspie.

Again, a bunch of stuff sounded like me.

Passed out some printed pages to a few people who've known me for a LONG time, and asked them to read and think...about me and how close the description comes to ID-ing me.

I have a feeling I know what they'll say, but we'll wait and see.