In Defence of Intense Interests
For a long time, the story about intense interests in autism has been a negative one. We viewed autism as pathology, and so naturally, anything about autism had to be bad. Intense interests were associated with autism; therefore, intense interests were bad. Of course, we tried to find explanations, to find justifications. Autistic kids need to get out and learn social skills, and they can’t do that if they’re pursuing an intense interest, we reasoned. Autistic kids need to get…