“What is with his obsession with dinosaurs?!?”
“She just won’t shut up about Disney movies!”
“If these kids would spend half as much time studying as they do playing with Pokémon cards, they’d be a lot better off.”
Such are the responses that tend to greet special interests among the autistic population — interests that, in the eyes of neurotypical observers, more often than not rise to the level of obsessions. But I want to join Prizant (2015) and a mother of an autistic child he quotes in giving these special interests a name more consistent with fairness: “‘enthusiasms’” (p. 54).
Whatever the terminology, the readiness with which people on the spectrum share their enthusiasms only tends to worsen society’s perception of them. Society tends to see such readiness in terms of autistic blindness to other people’s perspectives.
But first things first. What has any of this to do with communication?
When speaking of autism spectrum disorders, it is helpful to widen the scope of one’s inquiry beyond verbal communication. In autism, language often (though not invariably) lacks the nuance and richness needed on which to build a relationship.
Regardless, people on the spectrum are still human. Deficits in verbal communication exist alongside the human need for relationship, outreach, and some kind of mutual rapport. That said, what if it is precisely in the realm of enthusiasms that meaningful, fruitful communication happens?
There is research to support this notion. Laber-Warren (2021) offers the following observation:
(R)esearch conducted over the past 15 years is revealing that special interests are valuable to people on the spectrum. In addition to occasionally launching a career, they reliably build self-confidence and help people cope with emotions. Studies also suggest they can help autistic children gain social skills and learn (para. 6).
Later in the article, she cites a study that shows this playing out:
Winter-Messiers and her colleagues found that talking about special interests reduced other autism traits. For example, children fidgeted less, made more eye contact, and their speech shifted from vague comments to complex, vocabulary-rich statements. Many of the young people were also better able to initiate conversation and organize their thoughts. “We found it across every single major area of deficit,” Winter-Messiers says. “It was incredible” (Laber-Warren, 2021, para. 15).
But it is not just a matter of taking an enthusiasm and drawing communication out of it. I would suggest that on the part of the autistic person, the communication is already there. To be sure, it requires refinement and development, but enthusiasms form a language all their own deserving of attention.
Setting aside the differences between verbal and nonverbal communication, let us note something they have in common. Words, like other forms of communication, are symbols — that is, materials that point beyond themselves.
I think looking at the origin of the word “symbol” can be of help to us. “Symbol” derives from the Greek word “symbolon,” which refers to a common practice in Greco-Roman antiquity. People would receive one-half of an object — a vase, for example — and then a correspondent, when sending a message, would include the other half with that message. If the two halves fit, the recipient could be sure the message did, in fact, come from the purported sender. It was a matter of recognition.
Recognition is a matter of correspondence. And though we are accustomed to thinking of this in terms of written communication between two parties, correspondence can also happen between one’s inner and outer experience.
What sort of “inner” and “outer” do I have in mind? The general compatibility of self and others, as well as self and world, of course, forms part of the picture. But we need to go deeper. There is a certain ideal in both inner and outer, which we implicitly look at when seeking correspondence. That ideal is unity.
Unity is a sign of life. We see this in the way death is signified by its opposite: disintegration. Unity can signify safety in the sense of self-preservation. But it can also signify growth and outward movement, which point to a different kind of unity — namely, that of something undergoing development to become more itself, more in possession of its identity.
And here is where we come back to the phenomenon of autistic enthusiasm.
Loved ones and other concerned parties worry that when it comes to enthusiasms, people on the spectrum spend too much time and energy on things that do not matter. They should (so the logic goes) instead be paying attention to more important things and, indeed, to the people in their lives.
But I find myself reminded of something Matè (1999) says about attention within the context of a book on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: “The origin of the word attend is the Latin tendere, ‘to stretch.’ Attend means to extend, to stretch toward” (p. 323).
Attention is about more than just listening to your teacher talk about the quadratic equation. It’s about more than being able to repeat back to your mother the directions she gave you for cleaning your room. It is, at the bottom, about that correspondence between self and world, between the “in-here” and the “out-there,” that all of us seek.
People on the autism spectrum can find the world to be an unwelcoming place. Sensory sensitivities impact their ability to move about in their environments with a sense of trust, and misunderstandings occasioned by social unawareness and alternative ways of thinking can make relationships, even with their family members, difficult to build. But when engaged in their enthusiasms, they find joy. In the objects of enthusiasm, autistic people feel “attended to” by outer reality — that is, they find that correspondence between self and world that tends to prove elusive under typical circumstances.
The fact that joy can be found in an enthusiasm takes us back to the concept of unity. Philosophers used to define joy in terms of repose in an object of delight. And repose, by the nature of the case, implies a gathering of oneself — in one’s bodily position in the sense of being at rest and in one’s inner life in the sense of gathering all one’s faculties and attention into one focal point. It implies that one feels at home within oneself and in the world. Here, unity appears as a sense of self-integration within and unity in variety without.
And let’s not forget the emotional appeal of an enthusiasm, since emotion can be a sign of movement beyond oneself.
Of course, an enthusiasm can go too far. It can, as some fear, become an impediment to the social and personal growth of someone on the spectrum. I would argue that this is where being able to share one’s enthusiasms with others comes into play.
Consider an observation Lewis (1994) once made regarding the social aspect of personal enjoyment:
I think we delight in praising what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch (p. 179).
This puts the autistic sharing of enthusiasms, with apparent disregard for the interest level of the other party, in perspective. For people on the spectrum, sharing an enthusiasm is not an instance of social obtuseness. On the contrary, it is a testament that for them, as much as for anyone, there is a social need manifested in the fact that the joy of an enthusiasm is incomplete without someone with whom to share it.
When people on the spectrum engage in their enthusiasms, they are saying to anyone who will listen: “This is where my voice is. This is what speaks to me. If I’m going to connect with the world and dive into the mess of social relations, my greatest chances of success lie in whatever paths lead from here, as from a safe base. Here, in the enthusiasm you call an ‘obsession,’ is the fire that will fuel my growth and enable me to do what you want me to do.”
Listen carefully to enthusiasms. They speak louder than words.
Daniel Crofts is a 40-year-old man with Asperger Syndrome. He has an MA in English/Literature from the State University of New York College at Brockport and experience in freelance journalism, substance abuse prevention, online higher education, and service to children, youth, and adults with disabilities. He works as a direct support professional for Arc GLOW’s IGNITE program, which provides a college experience to young adults with disabilities, and is also at work on a memoir about life on the autism spectrum. He may be contacted at danielcrofts31@yahoo.com.
References
Laber-Warren, E. (2021). The benefits of special interests in autism. The Transmitter. https://doi.org/10.53053/UVVZ8029
Lewis, C.S. (1994). Reflections on the Psalms. In The inspirational writings of C.S. Lewis. (pp. 131-209). Inspirational Press. (Original work published 1955)
Maté, G. (1999). Scattered: How attention deficit disorder originates and what you can do about it. Dutton
Prizant, B.M., & Fields-Meyer, T. (2015). Uniquely human: A different way of seeing autism. Simon & Schuster
