Why do we get special interests?

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I've been wondering this for a while, but with having a special interest myself, I've come to wondering why we have special interests. I know that it's something that's supposed to keep us entertained and happy, but it doesn't really have much to do with the lack of social skills part.

You don't have to have AS to have special interest.

People with AS tend to be more intense in there interest to the point where it can interfer in there life. That is the real difference. Some of my special interest I can't get past in a way they make my life over all worse even though I enjoy them emensely.

There's much more to Asperger's and autism than just lacking social skills.

I disagree that special interests don't have anything to do with the lack of social skills. I always thought that part of why Aspies develop special interests is because it's a replacement for social contact. Whether you're an Aspie like I am who doesn't want social contact or you're an Aspie who wants friends but doesn't know how to make them, an all-encompassing interest in some area of academia is a good way to keep your attention without being around people. Also, if you go off of Simon Baron-Cohen's "systemizing" hypothesis, we develop special interests because we long for anything complex, detailed, and fact-oriented.

Last edited by OddDuckNash99 on 15 Feb 2011, 5:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

interests are like my friends. I feel very awful if I neglect one.

My interests seem to all be about trying to understand some aspect of the world and the people in it. Why? So that I have a better life, I guess.

I agree that my interest are good friend replacement.

With me the special interests came first. NT kids can be as obsessed with their interests as us but as they grow up they sort of lose that.
We with autism to get intensely into those things we like and because of an attention to detail and a dislike of change we stick with the same interest for a long time, even lifelong.

I really disagree that special interests take the pace of socializing. Sometimes you find yourself into your interests more because of a lack of friends but usually the special interests come first.

Some of my special interests actually pushed me into having more of a social life - not perfect, but I think that the context covered for some of my deficits for a time (of course I overloaded and burned out on this social life, but that's another story).

I don't think having them is related to social skills at all. I think there are so many traits associated with autism that you can't put them all on something as superficial as "social skills" or whatever. I think both "social skill deficits" and "special interests" are outward, somewhat superficial manifestations of ASD, and it's possibly mistake to define ASD in these terms. They're useful for identifying ASD, but the actual mechanisms probably run a lot deeper.

I agree pen as I have been playing video games since age 3 and am if anything more intenese in it now then I use to be.

I don't believe that you should say that special interests are a negative thing. Depending on what the interest is, your social skill level, and other factors it can be very positive. Like if you're interested in computers you can use it to your advantage in finding a job.

My special interests keep me happy and grounded.

Well it depends on the special interest doesn't it? I mean whether it helps you socialize or not. Some interests are hard to work on alone. For instance RPGs (not computer ones) are really hard to play by yourself, it just doesn't work that way. I think interests like that can help, we know we're gonna have a harder time than others on the social aspect of our interest, so instead we focus on knowing as much as we can about the interest as we can so that at least there's some reason for people to put up with us being (to their eyes) weird.

RPGs were in fact the special interest that got me to socialize.

Me too. That's the special interest that got me friends in HS. An extrovert dragged me into his circle of friends and I was sufficiently interested in the topic to agree.

What I always found curious was when my friends would make new friends. I accepted it but I recognized that I was unable or unwilling to imitate them. A friend might say, "hey, my new buddy hank and I went and did x, y, z" and I would draw a blank and think, "new friends? what is that craziness about?" It was as if he was telling he'd visited Mars but I'd nod and listen as if I understood.