Coupe
Well-Known Member
I don't think it's absolutely necessary to have a special interest in order to be on the spectrum...on the other hand, he could develop one (or several at the same time) - perhaps he just hasn't found what really, really interests him yet.
As for the whole "donuts" thing - it sounds to me like he's just trying to be funny, or maybe he wants to start a conversation with people and just doesn't really know the right (or "expected") way to go about it. See, many of us on the spectrum are VERY social and empathetic; we just don't show it in the way neurotypical people want or expect us to.
If it makes you feel better, if your little guy came up to me and started talking to me about donuts, I'd just smile and say, "Cool, I like donuts!" I wouldn't get mad and make him go to any office or anything like that. I understand that little kids just say funny things like that sometimes. I did, when I was a kid.
I've actually had many special interests of varying intensity of the course of my lifetime:
Infancy - toddlerhood: Winnie the Pooh, Barney, The Lion King, 101 Dalmatians, Lamb Chop's Play-Along, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, stuffed animals, Dumbo/elephants
Preschool-school age: Dogs, The Land Before Time movies, Beanie Babies, Pokemon, Bear in the Big Blue House, Mulan, A Bug's Life, Tarzan, DragonTales
Middle Childhood/Adolescence: Chicken Run, Wallace and Gromit and all other Aardman Studios films, Lilo and Stitch, Finding Nemo, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, animated films and how they are created, dolphins, whales, crows, and ravens, Anthropomorphic Cars and machines (i.e. The Love Bug, Cars and Cars 2, the Chevron Cars, etc), Where the Wild Things Are (movie), My Little Pony
...Now that I'm an adult, my current special interests are cetaceans (Dolphins and whales), Corvidae (crows and ravens), The Cars and Planes movies, Aardman movies (Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, etc), and animation in general. My interests did go through a lot of changes, though, as you can see.
As for the whole "donuts" thing - it sounds to me like he's just trying to be funny, or maybe he wants to start a conversation with people and just doesn't really know the right (or "expected") way to go about it. See, many of us on the spectrum are VERY social and empathetic; we just don't show it in the way neurotypical people want or expect us to.
If it makes you feel better, if your little guy came up to me and started talking to me about donuts, I'd just smile and say, "Cool, I like donuts!" I wouldn't get mad and make him go to any office or anything like that. I understand that little kids just say funny things like that sometimes. I did, when I was a kid.
I've actually had many special interests of varying intensity of the course of my lifetime:
Infancy - toddlerhood: Winnie the Pooh, Barney, The Lion King, 101 Dalmatians, Lamb Chop's Play-Along, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, stuffed animals, Dumbo/elephants
Preschool-school age: Dogs, The Land Before Time movies, Beanie Babies, Pokemon, Bear in the Big Blue House, Mulan, A Bug's Life, Tarzan, DragonTales
Middle Childhood/Adolescence: Chicken Run, Wallace and Gromit and all other Aardman Studios films, Lilo and Stitch, Finding Nemo, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, animated films and how they are created, dolphins, whales, crows, and ravens, Anthropomorphic Cars and machines (i.e. The Love Bug, Cars and Cars 2, the Chevron Cars, etc), Where the Wild Things Are (movie), My Little Pony
...Now that I'm an adult, my current special interests are cetaceans (Dolphins and whales), Corvidae (crows and ravens), The Cars and Planes movies, Aardman movies (Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, etc), and animation in general.
My interests did go through a lot of changes, though, as you can see.
Last edited:
