"Latching Onto" A Subject.

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I don't know if this is just me or if it is how the mind works in general for everyone though I have noticed most people do not quite have the same issues as most people tend to be what I call "Surface learners" ( I do not mean to dissrespect by saying this and I am certainly not saying that I am any more intelligent or less intelligent then anyone else).

Let me try and explain. If I mentally latch onto a subject, I find researching the subject a breeze. It is easy for me to spend weeks or months or years in researching everything I can find about it.

I am a slow thinker but I make up for it by being a deep thinker.

But if there is a subject (Probably most subjects! Haha!) that I find I don't latch onto, I find studying it extremely hard and the effort I have to put in is great... Because such a subject can be completely forgotton about within days. It is as if I had not looked at the subject before so I have to keep re-learning again and again... And even though when in school I have kinda passed exams in these subjects, I find that soon after my schooling ended, it was as if I wasn't there?

BUT, in a subject I can latch onto, even though I have left school I will not only retain it but I will keep studying more out of my general interest in it. (Sadly there were only elements of certain school subjects I latched onto. I was not any more able in these subjects then anyone else, but I just kept going in them to get a depth that others did not reach).

Now what I mean by this is that most people will study and do well in exams, and I would either do well or not just like anyone else I guess?
But it is what happens after. My knowledge in subjects I latch onto has added more andmore depth to it. Yet, if like most subjects in which I have not latched onto, I have almost forgotton.

When I first joined this site and just before that, I started to find out about autism and how the mind thinks. I found it fascinating. I do not remember technical terms so much, but as I latched onto the subject, I went on a continual six month or more research into everything. I watched Youtube after youtube video. I read any information I could find. Some areas I did not latch onto so I did not go down those areas quite so much, but if it struck a chord in me I was there!
Now if I was in a classroom enviroment it would not be the same. The enviroment and its destractions would put me off and I would even not want to study it at home because I would associate the subject with the enviroment if that makes sense? So my study has to be on my own terms in an enviroment I am happy with, where there is no pre-set course and I can let my mind wonder into avenues that it wants to roam.

But is this particular to me and how I think, or does everyone find this or is it an aspie thing?

What I do do is a lot of cross referencing in my mind to get a greater depth to a subject. I come at the subject from entirely different angles almost as if I am several different people adding different inputs into the same subject. I then throw out or put to one side impossibilities and the remains are the possibilities... (If it is a subject that requires that like UFO research etc). I will ALWAYS try to match what I see, hear and feel and experience with what the "Experts" in the subject have said and if my experiences do not tally, I throw out the experts oppinions and do my own research with a blank canvas. Why? Because I don't always trust people to come up with the truth! As if ONE person makes a mistake and happens to be a well known "Expert", I have noticed how generations of people have all based their expertize on this one persons work and they never question if this first person was right or not!

(Anyway. I am going off on tangents now because I am not very good at ending what I am trying to say. Over to you! Haha!)

I'm no expert, but I think what you're describing is an Aspie thing. (And, yeah, it was inconvenient in school.)

Yes what you describe is a common Autism Spectrum Disorder trait.

Our brains are designed for rote memory rather than short term memory.
This is due to various parts of the brain being different to NTs.

This prevents us from the benefits that NT's have in terms of short term memory.
However, we are often great stores of knowledge if we learn slowly, but surely.

What is stored in rote memory stays forever rather than for a short period of time.
So it may take longer for us for the knowledge to sink in, but once it sinks in,
it sticks and stays for longer.

This is a known feature of Autism Spectrum Disorder
and is why some of us have "tefal" foreheads...

The Tefal foreheads are caused by an increased size of the frontal lobe.

Thanks for the reply.

I have noticed that as I think in pictures, I do well to look at Youtube or pictures in books. I do read as well.

Well... I know some folk got excellent memories but it is not obligatory. When the psychologist gave me my diagnosis one of the first things I asked about was memory. Something along the lines of saying I thought Autistics had really good memories and wondering if somehow I'd missed a useful "symptom". The psychologist explained that my memory is very good for things that interest me. To make it worse, it appears to me that I cannot choose what interests me--it just happens.

As a result, I did poorly in classes requiring memorization but better in things that required understanding. My grades in college were better than my grades before college--and best in college within my major.

My Dad was amused that, when young, I did poorly in spelling when the words were like: cow, horse, cat,...but all of a sudden I got good at spelling when they started giving us hard words.

Definitely my short-term memory is horrible. I can take my pills (I'm old ), walk across the room, and not remember if I took my pills. Poor memory is something I've been developing coping techniques for all my life.

wow, very well stated, I am pretty much the same for everything. I have very poor visual and audio processing, but if I can read something and/write it or take notes, I have almost complete/total recall. I love researching on almost any subject and will seek information input until my voracious appetite for facts is satisfied. Might be years on one subject (or several ), might be just a few days depending on info available and if my curiosity is satisfied. One kind of aspie "thing" I suppose. Nice to know others have had similar experience with that! best wishes, happy new year!