Special interests of students with autism

[Anonymous]

Hi,
I am a special educator and am making up an interest inventory for my students, many of whom have autism (generally level 1 but some level 2). I want to include a wide variety of possible interests for a checklist. This will help me know about the interests of students who don't answer questions about themselves in typical ways. It also gives them the chance to tell something about themselves, rather than me just looking to parents for this information. It will help us have things to talk and write about and give me ideas for classroom materials. Can you give me some suggestions, please? As specific as possible, please. For example, "Star Wars" rather than "Movies". I'd appreciate any help. Thanks!!

[Anonymous]

What age range, OP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What age range, OP?

Ooops, sorry! Middle school.

[Anonymous]

what age? and fwiw, I feel like mine likes many of the same things as NT kids just for longer and more intensely. For example he spent 4 years fixated on lining up hot wheels cars and knowing every model of car he owned (he owned 100's) but has now moved on to Pokemon and similarly collects and sorts by type.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:what age? and fwiw, I feel like mine likes many of the same things as NT kids just for longer and more intensely. For example he spent 4 years fixated on lining up hot wheels cars and knowing every model of car he owned (he owned 100's) but has now moved on to Pokemon and similarly collects and sorts by type.

OP here--I'm interested in hearing ideas that you might think are just the same as NT, too. Thanks! My kids are still tiny, so I appreciate information on the interests of these older kids. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

I’m surprised as a teacher of Aspies that you aren’t hearing about their specific interests in great detail and All. Day. Long. Anime and comics. My Aspie likes My Hero Academia. Dungeons and Dragons. Video games such as Minecraft and Roblex. Metro train and bus routes. Space was a big one at social skills class.

[Anonymous]

My 12 yr old boy with ASD Level 1 talks my ear off about:

Roblox
YouTube
Fortnite
Magic the Gathering
Space—black holes are the current topic
Euclidean Geometry—no idea where this comes from
Dogs
Parkour
Quantum Physics vs Mechanics
Robotics-FLL and FTC


I spend a lot of time saying I don’t know.

[Anonymous]

Pokémon, Yu-Gi-oh, Magic the Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons, Splatoon, Anime, roller coasters/amusement parks, Minecraft, reading (including different genres), sports/sports statistics/fantasy football or baseball, cooking/baking, video games more broadly, art/drawing, music, legos, engineering, robotics, coding

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m surprised as a teacher of Aspies that you aren’t hearing about their specific interests in great detail and All. Day. Long. Anime and comics. My Aspie likes My Hero Academia. Dungeons and Dragons. Video games such as Minecraft and Roblex. Metro train and bus routes. Space was a big one at social skills class.

When I worked with younger kids, I did hear about their interests ALL DAY LONG. There are a couple of my current students who share a lot, but in MS, I see less of the students because they change classes. Also, I think that they have some of that pre-teen/early teen desire to keep some things private.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like it would be best to ask their parents.

[Anonymous]

Could be literally anything: horses, Minecraft, anime, YouTube videos, etc.

[Anonymous]

Fun question!

DC likes world building. They create languages, including the histories of the evolution of the languages, for the world. They make detailed, gorgeous maps. They consider what kinds of cultures the inhabitants would have based on their geographic location, natural resources, and prior contact with other cultures. They develop the cities differently depending on whether or not the culture uses appropriate urban planning or not.

They also get into baking and cooking sometimes.

Art is the biggest one, though. Just..lots and lots and lots of art.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fun question!

DC likes world building. They create languages, including the histories of the evolution of the languages, for the world. They make detailed, gorgeous maps. They consider what kinds of cultures the inhabitants would have based on their geographic location, natural resources, and prior contact with other cultures. They develop the cities differently depending on whether or not the culture uses appropriate urban planning or not.

They also get into baking and cooking sometimes.

Art is the biggest one, though. Just..lots and lots and lots of art.

Omg, I need to introduce your kid to mine. Mine loves inventing places and languages. She’s interested in geopolitics. Her pretend play when she was younger involved the United Nations. She and a friend are writing their own story set in Yellowstone. They’ve researched its history, made maps, invented a language, created extensive family trees for their characters, and come up with an origin story that goes back more than 100 years.

Anyway, back to the OP… My dd has fixated on the following interests: animals, herbs, outer space, the extinction of the dinosaurs, early humans, politics, history, the Warrior Cats book series, drawing cats on the computer.

[Anonymous]

I know an autistic adult who has always had an interest in maps. (I also know an autistic adult whose interests are guns and cement, but those are probably not things to put on your survey)

[Anonymous]

I would ask their parents. There’s no posible way to create an inclusive list. One thing I know about children with autism is no 2 share the same interests. Even when they do share common interests it can be much more object specific than topic or interest specific. So kids might all love Minecraft, one might only like playing it, another might like watching YouTube videos of it, another only likes it because they went to a birthday party and Minecraft was the theme so now they say they like it because they have friends that like it.