Some ASD may have one, singular, focused, special interest. Others may have multiple interests but the intense focus shifts from one area to another in real-time.

My special interests are arts & crafts, Cut the Rope and the 1960s. I also like bright colours as well. My special interests actually help me to socialize because I sell my handmade treasures and my paintings at the flea market every Sunday.

My special interest when i was younger was my cat Mozart. Literally all I could talk about was my cat and how adorable he was. I would try to find any way I could to fit him into the conversation. I didn’t even realize how much I talked about him to others until i looked back at videos from that time.

I used to refer to these as obsessions. My life has changed so much for the better since I recently found out I'm an Aspie

Staying on topic when you're deep into one of your fixations is like steering a ship in a storm.

The best day of my life as a little girl was when I discovered real estate advertisement magazines outside the grocery store....and they were free. So many beautiful houses and neighborhoods. I work as a property appraiser and I feel like I finally found my pocket. All my focus on houses and obsessive detail are a perfect fit. Nobody at work gets aggravated when I go on a monologue about some aspect of depreciation or valuation.

My interests are under the art umbrella. Fine art, drawing, designing, pattern making etc.

I’m just recently diagnosed about a week ago and autism became a special interest right after I decided to go get diagnosed, so far I’ve watched close to 20 to 30 documentaries on autism and listened to at least 100 or so public talks about autism, and have read hundreds of articles on it, my wife is the one who recommended I get tested, I’m so glad I decided to do it it’s brought my past more into focus and I’m starting to realize a lot of my issues in life isn’t my fault.

My special Interests: 1. Trains & vehicles. 2. Megaman. 3. Voltron: Legendary Defender. 4. Business.

I have many special interests such as psychology, cats, drawing, improv, comedy, writing, composing and acting...

@gracebellmore3404

2 жыл бұрын

THOSE ARE ALL MY SPECIAL INTERESTS (Plus big history!)

Thank you for your insight. My son is almost 5. He has been totally obsessed with superheroes for almost 3 years. He has tons of books, figures, games, movies, etc and has a constant hunger to learn more and more facts about them. For the past year, he has added LEGO minifigures to this obsession. So now, he is working on collecting every minifig superhero he can find. He loves taking them apart, putting them back together, and creating different gadgets for them. People don’t understand when I say he is obsessed with these things. It is literally all he will talk about. He will barely converse about anything else or answer our questions without changing the subject back to superhero or LEGO.

Will be having my assessment in 8 weeks. In the interim it’s safe to say my current special interest is ASD.

As I explore my neurodivergency, I’m so happy to have identified my special interests. I use them as rewards for myself! Mine are a select few amazing fictional universes (MCU, Stranger Things, Star Wars), and filmmaking. :)

I think my special interest cycles are 3-5 years, pretty consistently. Luckily the old ones don’t fade very quickly, but it does make followthrough a little more difficult, juggling so many interests at a time. The idea of devoting myself wholeheartedly for eight whole years with no internal conflicts sounds *amazing*. On the other hand, I am very broad and very rigorous and exacting, which are rare to find together.

I'm lucky in that I get to work in my special interest area and most people in my industry are hugely geeky about their area of expertise. I feel like I don't stand out so much compared to when I used to work in pubs and restaurants and with the general public.

Great to hear from someone else who was interested in acting/theatre! So used to hearing about the stereotypical "boy" SIs like cars/trains/planes/computer games. Acting is one of mine, gardening, art, chickens, Autism is actually one. I researched the heck out of it!!

@Sky-Child

3 жыл бұрын

Also good to hear adults who are into things like lego. Pokemon is still one of my SIs 🥰

Thanks for this friendly video. My special interests as a child where types of ships, animals and art. I still focus extremely on art and animals (humans included). It is nice to have special interests that really give you joy and peace, and when you get older you can even make a profession out of it.

My special interests are meteorology and superheroes but I have no-one to share my interests with. During my autism assessment as a middle aged adult I was never asked about my special interests and when I did they put the wrong ones down and said I was very interested in Charles Dickens literature which was not true as I struggled in reading them. My special interests was astronomy and reading encyclopaedias and atlases, as well as the X-men as but this was ignored by the assessor. I never get asked what my special interests.

i find special interests can be dangerous because you can end up getting tunnel vision and focus so much on the interest that everything goes the the wayside.

@shadowfox933

2 жыл бұрын

That has been one upside to all of the lockdowns: nothing left to be moved to the wayside except for family stuff

@ThepPixel

Жыл бұрын

Yeah Ive had that, like recently Ive noticed ive lost interest in my relationship and work because I want to spend all my time on photography.

@OstfrontElfgirl

7 ай бұрын

I’m guilty of this I try not be focused on my special interest , but I can’t stop >_

@camellia8625

Ай бұрын

Special interests can be restorative enabling you to be in a better frame of mind to do other things - when the person comes out of their attention tunnel.

My special interests are dinosaurs, My Little Pony, and religious studies. I even have a KZread channel just for MLP related topics.

My special interests are films, shows, video games, nu metal and grunge, especially the forgotten or indie ones.

So I like documentaries , researching autism now and adhd, colouring. Like you I sort of had an interest to do with being a mum. So my daughter got diagnosed with coeliac and I learnt all the facts and learnt about auto immune conditions aswell.

I really resonate with this. From the ages of 10 to 17 I was totally obsessed with guitar . Now I’m diving into animation. I sometimes can’t sleep because I’m so ready to start doing it again.

I used to have an Old English Sheepdog. They are one of my favourite dog breeds I grew up with them I also like Collies as well.

I love, LOVE that you did circus work. That's super cool! I've been "obsessed" with Japan and the Japanese language for, oh...thirty years now? It wasn't until I was going through the diagnostic process that I realized it's not an obsession, it's a special interest and my friends and family should've been encouraging and supporting that interest this whole time instead of telling me it's weird, but hey, at least I know now and can finally love and enjoy this and my other interests the way I have always needed to! Autism was a special interest for a good long while too, as I did a *ton* of research before I contacted a specialist for evaluation. And now, for the past few months, I've developed a special interest in small pets like hamsters, rats, rabbits, and the like. I started researching options for my kids who have asked about pets (cats aren't an option due to allergies, and I don't want to get another dog), and it just went from there. It's been a very enjoyable one too; there are some super cute videos out there. :) Thank you for this video - it's a great explanation of how special interests work, and I enjoy hearing about them.

@KatieM786

5 жыл бұрын

My sister used to breed African Pygmy Hedgehogs and Sugar Gliders. They are very cute. She has a lot of allergies too and seemed to be fine with those animals. Good luck with finding a pet! 😀

Isnt the best thing when people are interested and wanna listen to your special interests :)

Uggg, I relate a bit too much to autistic people describing their experiences with their special interests because I'm also very "obsessed" with certain hobbies but I don't have many other characteristics of autism (although I do have some traits of ASD and that makes me kind of... suspicious)!

With me it's music, it has been since I was 18. I've always loved music since I was a child, my favourite song at the age of 6 was Good Morning Starshine by Oliver ( Everyone Google it) but when I was 18 I saw a poster of Led Zeppelin on someone's wall and decided I wanted to be a singer. I sang live for the first time at 19 and I've been obsessed with writing and performing music ever since. It draws people to me so it became my social currency. I'm middle aged now, but I remain a singer for life.

I love drawing, coloring, daydreaming, games, hour glasses, rainbows, and the color purple. I loved acting as a kid. I was in love with Taekwondo.

@RailfanParadise

10 ай бұрын

Nice to see a fellow neurodiverse person involved in Taekwondo!

Taking away my special interest or preventing me from doing them caused me to be suicidally depressed.

@mrug123

9 ай бұрын

Oh god I hope that’s a joke

@misspinkpunkykat

9 ай бұрын

@@mrug123 Unfortunately it isn't. My special interest was/is veterinary medicine. Everyone kept telling me I couldn't be a vet for this reason or that reason (mostly due to my undiagnosed at the time dyscalculia) and it made me loose my will to even TRY in school and eventually even my will to live. My parents would just threaten to have me committed to a psychiatric hospital whenever I tried to tell them my feelings or tell me "If that's how you feel maybe you really shouldn't be a vet?" Okay, then maybe I really just shouldn't LIVE?

When I was younger I was drawing a lot, but now i have become blind, so i draw in my fzntasy books with poetry stuff (its dutch, my English is really bad). I really love my characters and they are also my special interest. And i also really like the backrooms what is also a fantasy worldm but then not made by me, but by the internet, but it looks like mine a little bit, but mine is not alwsys liminal and its always about my main character. Also, i dont talk a lot about what you can see, because I'm blind. People say that I do that still, but its different for me. Its more that its looks like that I'm using drugs by writing my book, because i'm feeling so when I'm writing. It feels so trippy, but i love it.

Thanks for this video and thanks for sharing your special interest!

This was a perfect explanation I get asked about my special interests all the time. I’m going to share this video

I love you. Thank you for sharing. I smiled all the way through watching this.

Thank you so much for these. It’s helping me understand my partner better. More than anything I could read.

This is my first time watching your video and I must simply say that I ADORE you! 🤗 Thank you for such an informative video!!💕

My special interest at the moment is photography but its so expensive 😂😂

Thank you for helping me better understand my daughter. Blessings.

Thank you for this video! 💗∞

I have different special intrests and they change at times but all the knowledge is filed and organized into my brian. I LOVE IT.

Thank you !

I'm not really good at learning strings of information, even with my special interests, but yea, I do have Autism and everyone is different.

Some of my special interests are stuff that people my age don’t like such as wallace & gromit, kingdom hearts & bobs burgers

My special interests are cats and blue spruces!

I love researching cults and I love murder documentaries and death row films documentaries absolutely loved just mercy

Can special interest shift often? I having been diagnosed, but I think I might be autistic. For a week, or a few weeks at a time, I’ll build an obsession with something (right now it’s the virtual band gorillaz) and I think these might be special interests, but I’m not certain. Like for the time I have a bit of an obsession with it, I’ll think about it often, and want to talk about it often, to the point I’m scared I’m annoying. Edit: by often I mean almost constantly, and a lot of my three time is spent focusing on it (weather it be listening to/watching/playing it, or interacting with it’s community, or just generally thinking about it)

The problem with my special interests is that it puts me in isolation and restricts my social life and that’s all I want to talk about what do I do

Thanks for your video. I'm interested in what are the most popular interests in the Austistic community are. I am currently interested in board and card games and I am amazed by how many autistics are in these communities.

You should come visit us. We have two big storage bins full of lego. I inherited my brothers lego, childhood lego, and what we’ve got for our kids. So a lot! I did have it all sorted once. It took two full weeks. But... kids. 😖so it’s no longer organized, lol. I think it would be fun to try using every piece in a single construction. It would be huge!

My special interest is music which I know is very broad but I spend probably at least 12 hours either listening to music or singing ..... basically my life revolves around music and has done for about 12 years ....I was diagnosed when I was 17 and I'm 22 now .....(sorry for rambling)

Hello, i am autistic and i am obsess with lift, escalators, door hinch, metal also machine how it works

Heh. I have a Pembroke corgi / yellow labrador cross. I suppose you'd say he's a special interest in that he's the little prince of my life. In my life, it's been Star Wars, the rock band Styx, comparative religions and mythology, Science fiction and futurism, World of Warcraft. Most of them have come and gone, but religions and sci-fi / futurism has been lifelong, so I figure they're here to stay. I can spend hours thinking about space habitats, orbital rings, interstellar travel, robots, artificial intelligence, and how it's all going to influence the development of humankind.

My daughter calls my special interests my current obsession!!😂😂😂😂😂😂 I have many. I need to find a group where I can share them with others!! I thought autistic people didn't like to be around people much. If you were a performer that kundof contradicts being autistic doesn't it?

At the minute my only/main special interests is sanders sides :)

I'm so happy you mentionned Lego 😅 when I discovered Bricklink my bank account took a hit loll.

Can you manipulate which activities you develop a special interest for?

Me and Rollerblading at the moment aha, It's slightly died down but only because I binge watched almost all the type of videos on it I like on youtube lmao

I mostly have a special interest with animals, but I also have side interests I still like. I want to know everything about animals, I want to work with animals, and I even wish to so many animals! You can have multiple at a time is what I found ith myself like a child could have animals and MLP which I am embarrassed to say- I was obsessed with that for a few years- Art is still another interest I have but I don't want a job wit it anymore but growing up I wanted to be a vet and I would watch animal planet any chance I got and most of the time I stayed up all night watching animal planets and being amazed! I still want a job to do with animals I just didn't know there was any other option so (:

My special interests Playing on my iPad Dogs Autism Video games

mine is sonic I FREAKING LOVE THAT HEDGEHOG, also drawing and building, MOSTLY SONIC, GOTTA GO FAST

I created a dog breed bingo card b/c i do that with dogs. i give them out sometimes

Im obsessed with jellyfish c;

@jackmellor5536

2 жыл бұрын

Me as well. I was obsessed with them when I was a kid.

My main special interest is Space Star wars is a ‘sub-interest’ of Space I watch star wars everyday

@shoarmaschaap5460

3 жыл бұрын

@THE GR0?VE I’m not 16+ so no

Will autistic people lose their special interest?

@RailfanParadise

10 ай бұрын

Some do while some don’t. It depends on the person and how passionate they are about it.

Ehehhe tally hall

🌲😹

Is it weird to like

@Therainbowty722

4 ай бұрын

Mlp = my little pony And maybe paw patrol And pound puppies 🐶 And LPs = little less pets shop And beanie boos And that stuff Is it weird or what do you think

Is it normal to have a special interest in someone?

everyone has special interests...