Special interests...

Post Reply New Topic

From what I've been reading; many kids on the spectrum have special interests... to the point that it may become obsessive??

My son does have a lot of ASD traits, but this is not one. He does love his lego and cars but is not obsessed about them and doesnt talk obsessively about one topic of interest.

How common is it for a child on the spectrum to have a special interest that they spend alot of time with?

Are there any parents about who's kids are on the spectrum who don't have any special interest or talk often about a topic of interest??

I don't remember special interests much as a child, but I certainly do have them as an adult. I think I began to exhibit them from about the age of 10 - but that is just me (or just the limits of my memory).

Sometimes I get obsessed with a topic (e.g. supervolcanoes, or impact craters from huge meteors) and just spend hours on Wikipedia and other websites reading all about them (I'm over 50, by the way) - a mini, intense research project just for my own enjoyment. But the obsession might last only a day, or couple of days. And sometimes I have pursued an unusual special interest for years - even decades - on and off (e.g. gradually teaching myself an obscure dialect of a foreign language, which the average person thinks is "weird" but I find really calming).

The point is, I can talk with someone about my special interest with great intensity (e.g. if I meet the right person at a social gathering), but otherwise I might say nothing, or have a stilted and uncomfortable conversation with someone who does not share my special interests.

I had special intrests/obsessions as soon as I could speak. I think I was obsessed with cats as soon as I came out of my biological mother's womb. My special intrests have always been animal related for some reason.

My son is almost 10. He has favorite toys, but he has never talked about them with people much. He is very social and likes people and conversations. He has no problem joining in, he just then tends to turn whatever topic they were talking about into a monologue and not a conversation. However, he is always on their topic. He doesn't always do this. There are times when he converses as well as any NT, but it happens frequently enough.

His favorite things are legos and video games. I have noticed that he is very irritable, grouchy and rude when we pull him off these things for about 10-15 minutes. After that, he is totally fine. This happens even when we have given him a heads up on how much time he still has and even when we are going someplace he really wants to go. I have noticed that when these things aren't available to him, (such as on vacation or he has been grounded off them.) he is actually much better.

In contrast, one AS boy we met at OT/PT, and tried to strike a friendship, obssessed about Mario games. His Mom said he would draw pictures of the different levels, and even had trouble sleeping going throught the levels in his mind. We asked him over to play once, but he never did as it was difficult for him. He knew my son liked other games as well as Mario, and he didn't want to play anything but Mario.

I worry that the special interst thing for him may be something that hits when he is grown. That he will come upon some interest, totally immerse himself in it to the point of not having any balance in his life. I hope it will be more like what one - A -N has described and it will be interests that he can manage.

My first special interest started when I was 3 (horses)and I was pretty immersed in it until my early 20's. I started having some other "obsessive " interests at about 9, but everything took a backseat to horses. I still love them, am fascinated by them, and hugely enjoy any activity involving them. But I don't fixate solely on them anymore. Your son may develop special interests, and at times they may consume his attention. It can bring a lot of happiness. I think having strong skills in other areas (time mananagement, prioritization, learned social skills) might help keep a special interest from being too all consuming- I am just theorizing, please understand; I am still working on this myself! Your son has the great benefit of a mother and probably others who understand him and want to help him. A lot different from my experience!

My son doesn't have one particular special interest. I like to say he has rolling special interests! When he learns a new topic that strikes his fancy, he will amass an amazing number of facts in short order and he will talk to anyone and everyone about it but the topic is often replaced fairly quickly. I think the volcano interest was one of the longest lasting, about 2 months or so. He is the same with toys. When he gets a new HotWheels car, that is the ONLY car he wants to play with for several days or a few weeks but then he moves on, sometimes back to an old car that was a prior favorite. HE will carry the favorite car everywhere and insists on having it when he goes to bed.

I can't say that my 5yr old has special interests which she obsesses about. She has unusual interests for a girl of her age (Dr Who, Thomas, lego, toy cars, aliens, space) and becomes very attached to her toys. She loves all living things, even down to microbes, but dogs especially. She doesn't try to learn loads about them. She's just learning to read. Maybe once she can read independently we'll notice a special interest taking off.

It's entirely possible he has special interests and you are not aware of it, because children with AS don't always share things that interest them with others. This was the case with me as a young child. I would obsesses about my interests in my mind and never once mention them to my parents.

The child may also have interests which go undetected because they come about in the course of rather mundane things. For example, a TV show, a TV network, or a video game. But the child with AS for whom it's a special interest will obsess in their minds over this show, network, or video game, and the point of interest will often be narrow. The child may be obsessed with the History Network, but not be able to tell you much about history. They might be obsessed with a TV show but not really collect information on it that people do when they are interested in a certain show, they might be obsessed with playing a video game but only the act of playing it and not any information that might be relevant to winning it.

A person with AS can be incredibly introverted in their interests.

Maybe she was just unobservant but my mother had no idea that I watched QVC every night between 3am and 5am when I was 9.

Sounds like me. I think my interests have gotten more specific as I've gotten older. When I was a kid I was into dinosaurs (ok, what kid isn't?) But at one point last year I became interested in the bird-dinosaur link (after noticing CLAWS an order of chicken wings) and spent weeks online researching, trying to figure out if there were any birds that have actual HANDS.

My older son, almost 7, with classic autism and anxiety manifesting as selective mutism, panic attacks, and sleep, issue has interests but not obsessive interests.

His younger brother, who has been diagnosed with OCD under the age of 4, has the special interests. I suspect that the younger one is AS.

The younger one has an obsessive interest in the alphabet--sometimes screaming to get letters he sees in a store, refusing to leave the house until he has finished writing the alphabet, and relieving himself in his training pants rather than putting down his letters or the pen with which he is drawing them. He is also interested in doors to buildings--has to find the door to every building that we enter and repeatedly ask me where the exit is. He sometimes gets fixated on wearing a certain color and has certain rituals he and others must follow. He will also repeatedly say addition problems when nervous. An herbal childre's remedy containing ingredients commonly found in herbal teas has helped a little, but not enough.

Around here, obsessive interests seem the most common in kids with Asperger's or comorbid obsessive compulsive disorder.

My current special interest is psychology. And World of Warcraft.

I suspect my first interest was cats - one of our cats had a litter of kittens when I was 3 months old, and my first word was 'meowmi'. Throughout preschool age it was the rain forest. Sometime during school age I shifted to obsessing over the book series The Animorphs. When my school did their 'say no to drugs' program when I was 10 or so, I got interested in drug addiction. I also went through a brief obsession with disabilities in reaction to a disability-awareness thing our school did, and I learnt Braille and fingerspelling at that time.

My drug obsession led to me discovering autism, actually. My Mom wrote a feminist paper about the way women who abuse drugs/alcohol during pregnancy are portrayed, and mentioned FAS. I decided to research it, and then stumbled across some autism stuff as well and found that more interesting. When I found stuff by autistic people, I first began to suspect I might be on the spectrum because they described the same feelings I had.

When I was really little I was also into fire hydrants and flags.

I've also always been obsessed with The Transformers (see username/avatar.) The Animorphs toys were actually marketed as Transformers.

My daughter doesn't have obsessive interests per se, but the things she does take an interest in she seems to accumulate a depth of knowledge that is not typical of kids her age. When she was 5 her teacher asked me "who is Masaharu Morimoto?" My daughter, who loves Food Network, was telling her all about him and how great he was, etc, etc. While she didn't/doesn't incessantly talk about a single subject she seems to be overly insightful/observant in things she does take an interest in.

Wow, a very interesting read, thankyou!

Well I guess having read your replies my son does indeed have some special interests. I think its true what you say Chronos, that he may not be showing a great deal of it outwardly. He does look deep in thought a lot of the time!

He shows interest in electrical things and how they work. Sometimes when I lay in bed with him at night to chat before he goes off to sleep he will look up to the ceeling and ask all about the heater and air conditioner vents, how they work, whats inside the ceeling (wanting photo's of inside the ceeling) how the electrical plugs and sockets in the walls work etc etc.
He has always been interested in how electrical things work but I never thought of it as a special interest rather a usual child curiosity and the fact that his dad is electronically minded.

He is also interested in building, all of which i assumed was every little boys interest I love listening to his ideas he is so creative. He talks about building his own home and the type of electronic things that he will build inside the house. (which is obvious to me now why he has an interest in how the fans, wall plugs etc work) He also talks about designing and building a theme park with roller coasters and some pretty fantastic ideas for other rides.

He has been a fan of trains from age 1 (Thomas the tank trains, dvd's books etc) then added to that matchbox cars from age 3, now he's also interested in lego. He does spend time playing with other toys but these three things he plays with the most and are his absolute favourites.

Yes, so all in all, I can see his "special interests" very much clearer now

Think I'll head to the library tomorrow to find some more electronic & building books

That's wonderful. I'm a bit jealous to see how practical his interists are already and how supportive you are of it!

Best wishes

I've had special interests my whole life and they've always been a great source of joy for me. Obsessions aren't the horrible and freakish things that the majority of the human population makes them out to be.