Special interest & route learning

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Part of the diagnostic criteria mention the information gained as part of special interests as more route memorization than actual understanding. I am wondering what people's opinion is on this is.

I would define understanding by the ability to preform useful work with the information, and the ability to take concepts and extrapolate them to new situations and ideas. I believe people with AS have an increased ability to draw new conclusions from old ideas, because they view the problem differently.

when talking about a special interest without a specific problem or example to apply the information to, yes the information often comes out as lists of interesting facts with little or no explanation of how they relate to one another. However this is how I would excite someone like myself about my ideas.

If given a specific problem or example, I can solve it for you, just don't try and ask me how I did it.

I think that's bunk :\

Personally, when I learn something I'm NOT interested in is when it's pure fact memorization without understanding. It's when I learn about my "special interests" that I both memorize and comprehend. I can tell you tons of facts about miscellaneous things (chemistry, astronomy, etc) without understanding how and why they work, but I can also tell you all about osteology, pathology, taphonomy, etc, and know exactly why and how everything works.

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A question is misunderstood or confuses the answerer. The answer is sure but wrong or tentative and full of safe hard facts. The asker's view of the answerer is warped.

It's easy to see how misunderstandings can occur, especially when the evaluation takes place in a laboratory setting. How does a non-expert interview a dedicated Aspie who's read everything on the subject?

That applies to Kanners type autism, not aspergers or HFA. That is one thing I didn't like about the movie "Mozart and the Whale". Most of the people in the "aspergers" group in that movie were stereotypical trivia spouters. I couldn't relate at all.

When I study a topic I'm interested in I prefer to use my own logic and intuition to form theories and seek out general relationships. I don't find rote memorization enjoyable at all and I tend not to retain information well when it doesn't have any kind of logical or theoretical structure to it.