Asperger's Severity: Part 4: Special Interests

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So, I've decided to create two additional polls in the 'severity' series. I got a little sidetracked after creating the other polls, but I will look at the poll results and responses and see if there are any interesting or noteworthy correlations.

Anyway, this poll is related to the nature of one's special interests and if/how it effects severity of AS symptoms. In this poll, I'm interested in any social element involved in your special interests. Below are definitions of the terms that will be used in the poll:

Highly Social: your special interest involves or requires working or interacting with others in a social environment.
Moderately Social: your special interest at times exposes you to social situations or social rules (this could include an interest in things such as films or television, which involves watching scripted social interactions).
Solitary: your special interest does not require or involve any sort of social interaction, and does not expose you to social rules.

Please respond below with the option you chose and what your special interest is.


For the sake of this poll, I'll be using the non-clinical terms of Mild, Moderate and Severe to describe severity of one's symptoms. These terms will mean the following:

Mild: you could or do live on your own with little or no assistance.
Moderate: you could or do live on your own, but with daily or weekly assistance.
Severe: you could not live on your own.

Thanks for participating! Results should be interesting.

My special interest involves specific movies, and I can't live on my own.

So - moderately social interest, severe As

I wen for 'Moderately Social interest, mild AS', but I'm not really AS, at least officially.

I have a wide variety of special interests, so it' hard to pick one. Anyway, I like astronomy (looking into telescopes, talking), high-end audio (listening to music with someone else), talking about trains etc., so at least some of my interests involve interacting with others.

On the other hand, I have interests that are primarily solitary, like tweaking audio equipment for sound quality, listening to music at home, reading a sci-fi or scientific book, watching a sci-fi tv-show, cycling or swimming alone. Most of what I do on the internet is solitary I think, even if I participate on forums like WP. I don't like watching tv in general, though.

Moderately social, mild AS. My interests involve life animals and sometimes watching said animals socialise and figuring out what they're doing. I do sometimes try and get their attention too, and if it works I'm socialising with those animals.

My main interest, computers and electronics can be non-social but as it is my main business I do deal with customers a fair amount. One of my hobbies involves motorsports which tend to be social so I selected mild AS, moderately social.

I consider my AS to be moderate, and while a lot of my SIs are completely solitary, a lot are moderately social (TV shows and movies). I've learned a lot of social rules from my SI TV shows/movies. One that has helped me a lot is Degrassi, because it deals with teenagers and relationships and things that I don't understand naturally.

By your definitions, I am moderate, in that I would require assistance to live alone.

My interests are moderately social, in that said interests involve games. I do some online gaming which involves teaming with other people (in MMOs, or currently Mass Effect 3's multiplayer component), but I tend to prefer to play solo over playing in groups.

I would say my interest in gaming pushed me toward more socializing, as they were tabletop wargames and roleplaying games that required the participation of at least two people, and finding ways to play them solo were deeply unsatisfactory (for wargames) or missing the point thoroughly and not worth trying (roleplaying games). At one point - during the latter half of the 90s - I would say my interests were highly social, as I spent a lot of time involved in LARPing, but I am no longer part of that community.

I have more than one special interest, and they include both moderately social and solitary special interests under your definition. Should I vote for moderately social because at least some are in that category?

I did consider multiple interests, but thought it would be far too complicated to try to represent that in the poll.

I would say, as a rule, to go with the more social option.

I'm not sure that I have a special interest (and didn't vote) but I'm curious about the results.

Someone please copy them into a post when there have been a lot of votes?

You can try looking at this thread when you aren't logged in.

Anyway, I classed my interest as moderately social, because my two main interests - psychology and genetics - both focus on people, but I primarily fulfill them by reading journal articles rather than interacting with others. However, I have volunteered with developmentally disabled people, which fulfills both interests because usually you can find a good proportion with some sort of genetic syndrome (most common is Down Syndrome, but about half of those with diagnosed syndromes have something rarer - I've met individuals with Rett Syndrome, Cri du Chat Syndrome, suspected Sotos Syndrome, Prader-Willi Syndrome, Cardio-Facio-Cutaneous Syndrome, all through the same activity program). I am much more socially skilled and enjoy the interaction much more when my interaction partner has a disability of some kind.

My special interest is a band, I cannot live on my own right now because I am too young, but I will be able to when I am older.

SOCIAL SITUATIONS I MAY BE EXPOSED TO:

-Interacting with fans at shows

-"Meet and Great" sort of thing

-Interacting with fans/the band online

However, I could just sit around and listen to my iPod or watch their DVDs, but I choose to go to concerts and stuff, so moderately social.

Oh yes, that works! Thanks for the suggestion.

By your definition: Solitary interest, mild AS.
I have an ever growing collection of symphonic music from the late classical period, say 1780's, to the late romantic/early modern era, say 1920's. I download movements or entire symphonies from Youtube or blog sites, convert them into my favorite format (WMA 128), separate the whole symphonies in Sound Forge, give each movement their proper name (Allegro, Presto, etc) and give the artists their credit by labeling them in the audio properties to create their ID tag. Yes, it takes while to create just one complete digital album but it's worth it in the end.

I also play Fallout 3 for hours. I guess it's the game that's most like me: a solitary traveler finding his way in the world. I don't play online.

although I'm not diagnosed I would definitely say I have very mild AS. I also chose that I have moderate interest in sociability. I was nearly going to put high but then I realised how much alone time I actually need and how much it'd bug me if someone else were to intrude on this time.

I put mod/mild. My interest in autism leads to a lot of conversations with people both professionally and in day-to-day and my music/songwriting interests aren't always shared as much as they could be but are often enough.