The Framing of Special Interests to Stigmatize Them

Post Reply New Topic

https://www.thecut.com/2017/03/a-new-wa ... rests.html

When I read the linked article, I was surprised by the realisation that we have had so little comment really over the years about this on WP (relative to other topics).

I share her view that special interests are positive and important on all kinds of levels, and the reason NTs frame them negatively is also something which deserves more attention at this stage of our AS history (I think).

In past decades those shaming and stigmatising attitudes of AS preferences were not questioned by anyone, until AS people began advocating for different perspectives from an informed point of view this century, and there is still far to go in educating the shamers, the stigmatisers and any organisation which frames everything AS as a negative. Some are apparently uneducable, but at least they can be confronted, with articles etc like the one here.

...I'll have to read this !

_________________
Renal kidney failure, congestive heart failure, COPD. Can't really get up from a floor position unhelped anymore:-(.
One of the walking wounded ~ SMASHED DOWN by life and age, now prevented from even expressing myself! SOB.
" Oh, no! First you have to PROVE you deserve to go away to college! " ~ My mother, 1978 (the heyday of Andy Gibb and Player). I would still like to go.
My life destroyed by Thorazine and Mellaril - and rape - and the Psychiatric/Industrial Complex. SOB:-(! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!

That's a great article, thanks for posting it. A stigmatizing view might label a special interest as "restricted" or "circumscribed" out of ignorance, not realizing the great benefit of it in the subjective experience of the autistic person. I'm autistic and when I was little, neighbors used to tell my mother in concerned tones that they would find me staring at tree bark for extended periods. I still love such natural structures, they open up avenues in my pattern thinking, I learn from them in ways most folks can't understand - those patterns talk to a deep part of my mind. That learning of patterns with recursive detail came very much in handy in the systems engineering and computer/signal processor programming potions of my career. I guess I'm lucky that my parents fed my special interest of physical sciences with encyclopedias, electronics kits, chemistry sets, etc. when I was young. It didn't make me popular - being a "brain" with thick glasses attracted bullying and ostracism in school. But I got to intern working in genetics of bacterial viruses in high school, and in my career got to do some great design work in RF interferometers, phased antenna arrays, jam-resistant neural net systems, ground-collision avoidance systems for various aircraft, encrypted transmission of classified voice and data, and the like, ending up with my name on 11 patents. I got mainstreamed early on, which was painful and really hard, but I got the chance to excel and had teachers who encouraged me (as well as a few teachers that outright loathed me, lol). I have a concern that students with ASD today may end up being treated as deficient and abnormal - and may have special interests or other features of autism "corrected" by educators, rather than being encouraged to follow their quirky strengths.

Another excellent article, B19.

The story of Ron, the pianist, particularly rang true for me. Even years before I was diagnosed, I would tell people that my music isn't just something that I do, it's somewhere that I go; a particular state of mind that I enter. It's my sanctuary, not just from the outside world, but also from my own circular thoughts, perseveration and procrastination. Sometime, to be able to solve a problem, I desperately need to not be thinking about it for a while, lest it overwhelm me too much to think clearly.

The same goes for my other "special interests" right throughout my life; I think they're an innate coping strategy, in much the same way that stimming is. During periods of depression, I have been encouraged to try meditation and "mindfulness", neither of which I've been able to employ successfully because I cannot calm my mind enough. After getting used to my diagnosis and learning more about autism, I realised that part of the answer was there all along. Focusing my hyperactive thoughts on my passions gives the overworked social and executive parts of my mind a rest for a while - they take me to a special hyper-focused state that is my equivalent of "meditating". The idea of traditional meditation was a good therapy idea in principle, but not the techniques - I see hyper-focus on my interests and stimming as my equivalents, tailored to my peculiarly hyper-active mind.

Many times, "special interests" which were seen as being weird, and "framed," lead to many great inventions.

Can you imagine how a hunter would feel if a fellow tribesperson kept on looking at a cereal grain all day, instead of going out hunting with the rest of the guys?

Yep....the hunter would "frame" that "special interest," not realizing that that person looking at that cereal grain would create one of the paths that lead to farming, and hence to civilization.

In a roundabout way, I've been saying the same thing since I got here.

Nope..."special interest" wasn't in any vocabulary back in the 60s/70s.

Reading a book was considered "weird" within my circle of acquaintances. People reacted like you were a "social misfit" or something once you were caught carrying a non-school book around town.

I'm not a "genius" in the musical sense.

But I do understand, at least to some extent, the aesthetics of music.

I've met quite a few people who have trouble verbally conveying their emotions.

Yet they are geniuses at conveying their emotions through their music.

^ I had a friend years ago who worked as a music therapist at a high-security young offender's psychiatric unit. Getting people who's emotions were 'locked in' to find a way to express them was his passion. Unfortunately, too many people view music therapy as just listening to something calming in order to quieten people down, but in the right hands, it is capable of much more than that.

It sure is.

It has been shown that exposing Alzheimer's patients to the music of their era increases their cognition. That's because it increases their motivation.