Autism in Women and Girls: A Look at Special Interests

Here’s what some autistic women and their advocates say: Special interests don’t feel restrictive at all. By contrast, special interests can feel expansive. They may actually integrate various aspects of people’s lives by connecting experiences at school, in extra-curricular activities, in social lives, and at work.  

Special interests can give people benefits like the following: 

For some people, special interests eventually become a field of professional expertise. In a 2020 UC Davis MIND Institute panel discussion on “Life on the Spectrum: Women Sharing Their Unique Experiences,” computational biologist Lisa Malins explained, “Our intense interests bring us so much joy, and they can even translate into a career…even interests that might not seem to be career-related on the surface. I had a strong interest in video games first, and that led me to a gaming community that introduced me to HTML, which ultimately led me to bioinformatics, which is the career I’m currently in” (Malins, 2022, 28:08). 

Her colleagues have expressed envy that she began developing her coding skills in childhood. She says, “Honestly, I have my autism to thank for that. I’m sure my parents got annoyed with me talking their ears off about Nintendo games, but because they gave me that space, it allowed that domino effect to occur that led me to my career field. And I think, in general, passion creates more passion” (Malins, 2022, 28:45). 

Researchers have described the special interests of autistic women and girls as more socially acceptable than some of the subjects that may interest autistic boys (Simcoe et al., 2022).  Special interests in horses and celebrities, for example, align closely with the interests of many neurotypical girls, so they may be less likely to draw attention from teachers, parents, or evaluators.  

Some researchers have suggested that choosing areas of interest that are considered gender-appropriate or socially acceptable may be “interlaced with camouflage and imitating behaviour” (Simcoe et al., 2022).   

Clinical developmental psychologist Marie Hooper, PhD, a late-diagnosed autistic and ADHD clinician, explained the risk of misdiagnosis linked to special interests in a 2024 webinar for Autism Ontario titled “Her Spectrum: Navigating the Unique Experiences & Needs of Autistic Girls & Women.” 

“That’s why these girls are being missed,” Hooper said, “because their special interests are socially acceptable. If you say, ‘My daughter reads four chapter books a day,’ great! She’s a great reader! She’s going to do so well” (Hooper, 2024, 27:39). 

Hooper said it can be more informative to look at how someone interacts with their special interest, as well as the degree of interest a person shows. An autistic girl might collect Barbies or My Little Pony figures, arranging them in a certain way, or dressing and re-dressing them, but without using them in imaginative play. “We have a lot of collecting and not so much engaging in play,” she notes (Hooper, 2024, 20:44).  

As an example of intensity, Hooper described a student with a special interest in Taylor Swift, saying she was “a Swiftie through and through.”  

“She has learned speeches that Taylor has given. She has learned how she speaks to people,” Hooper said. “Even when her mom says, at the end of the day, ‘Okay, it’s Taylor time!’…she will go back to studying videos of Taylor. She really wants to mimic her” (Hooper, 2024, 22:17).