When Your Child’s Interests Don’t “Fit” Their Age: Special Interests and Friendship

Has anyone ever told you that you were “too old” to still like a particular movie, TV show, or book series? Many families of children with autism, Down syndrome, ADHD, and other disabilities grapple with their child demonstrating a special interest in a topic that isn’t “age-appropriate,” which is most often that the interest skews to a younger demographic. What this means for the child’s social life and interpersonal skills also comes up in conversations with the experts we interviewed for this article. Special interests, they say, can offer parents, educators, and peers new opportunities to connect with children and their worlds.

To better understand how special interests can support socialization, communication, and connection — and why parents may want to rethink what it means for an interest to be “age-appropriate,” we talked to Andrea Davis, PhD, clinical psychologist, owner and founder of Greenhouse Therapy Center, and president of the Coalition for Developmental Approaches; Sally Burton-Hoyle, EdD, professor of special education and communication at Eastern Michigan University; Adam Hazlett, DA, humanities professor at Henry Ford College, autism advocate, and founder of the Humanities 101 Foundation; Liz Angoff, PhD, licensed educational psychologist, school neuropsychologist, and founder of ExplainingBrains; Allison Ratto PhD, clinical psychologist at the Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders at the Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C; Breea Rosas, EdS, NCSP, LEP, school psychologist and founder of Neurodiversity Affirming School Psychologist; Susan Fawcett, PhD, RSLP, speech-language pathologist and director of therapy, behavior, and family support at the Down Syndrome Resource Foundation; and Pat J. Bradley, PhD, retired psychologist.

Socialization as a child and adolescent can be a maze no matter how your brain works. As we detailed in our Autism 101 and Down Syndrome 101 articles, many children with these disabilities may need services to develop their social and communication skills. For children with special interests, their expansive knowledge can often be a double-edged sword, with the potential both to help them connect with family, peers, and the greater public and to take up their attention for those more challenging interactions. For the most part, sources say, a special interest can be a guide to helping a child balance the socialization they want (making friends, bonding with family, dating) versus the socialization they need (communicating needs, participating in school, finding a job).

This often begins with modeling when the child is younger, Dr. Ratto says, and coaching from both a parent and a service provider. This can look like helping a child navigate conversations with others, giving encouragement with turn taking, and helping a child understand signs that someone may love, like, tolerate, or hate the topic at hand. “You’re going to encounter all of those things, whatever the interest is,” but that applies to anyone trying to strike up a conversation with new people.

For children with Down syndrome, Dr. Fawcett says, special interests can catalyze relationships that might not otherwise develop. “People with Down syndrome don’t always have a robust group of friends, and we try to make parents aware of that really early,” she says. Forging social bonds may look easy when the child is younger, but they become harder to maintain as the child ages and friendships require more effort. A special interest can be the first step to helping a child connect with others. She adds, “Friendships start because you have common interests with somebody else. I’ve definitely seen adult friendships between two people [where] their special interests might be a little different, but they’re somewhat aligned and they end up being interested in each other’s special interests. You want somebody who is going to gravitate to the same things you like.”

Using a special interest as an entry point to conversations can be helpful, but Dr. Davis adds that building a child’s capacity for both predictable and spontaneous communication shouldn’t rely exclusively on special interests. To help a child start to diversify what they talk about with others, parents can help them explore what Drs. Ratto and Angoff call stretch or flex topics. These are topics that, while not exactly a child’s special interest, are adjacent enough that a child may know enough to maintain communication and find common ground.

“I might have a topic I love, [like] sharks — they are my core topic, and I would love to talk about them all day long. But I can stretch — sharks live in the ocean, so I can talk about a lot of things related to marine science that will also bring me joy to talk to someone about,” says Dr. Ratto. And because most children have multiple special interests, they may also be able to draw on totally unrelated topics. “Maybe I also enjoy talking about dinosaurs or crocheting or origami. Then we just talk about how to navigate those conversations, read other people’s interests, and communicate about our own interests as well.”

In this clip, Dr. Angoff discusses communication skill-building with special interests.

Nonspeaking children

For children who are nonspeaking or have limited spoken language, a special interest can itself be the bridge to self-expression with others. As Dr. Davis explains, there are times when a special interest can appear innocuous, but for some children it can help them develop skills via nontraditional methods. In one case, a child who was minimally speaking had a special interest in the program Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. Where she did not use spoken language, she would instead show specific episodes whose themes aligned with her feelings to demonstrate her needs to others.

“It can seem sometimes like it’s not meaningful, when they want to see this video over and over and over, [but] if we’re really listening to the context of when they bring this particular episode up, it is around the same emotion that they’re trying to deal with. That was a way of dealing with, but also expressing, what was going on for her,” says Dr. Davis.

Dr. Burton-Hoyle adds that how a child relates to their special interest can be its own form of communication. For parents and other adults, signs of a child neglecting their responsibilities for time with their special interest can help others interpret the child’s unspoken feelings and needs. “Let’s say they have nontraditional communication. I’ll want to talk to their parent and say, ‘Tell me something they like and something they don’t like.’ I’m going to try to see what I can do to draw out from the individual, and then look at the need,” she says. “I don’t care if you are four or you’re forty. Your daily agenda should have things that you have to do and things that you want to do.” If a child can’t find a balance between their needs and wants, that in itself is a message that more support is warranted.

Special interests can be a powerful way for children to connect with other people, but that doesn’t mean socializing around those interests always comes easily. A child may not realize when someone else has lost interest, may share more information than the other person knows how to respond to, or may simply prefer to enjoy their interest on their own. Here are a few important things for parents to keep in mind as they support their child’s interests and social connections.

Going beyond the interest

Dr. Angoff explains that, while a special interest in and of itself may be helpful for connecting with others, it may also present challenges for children who want to have friendships, relationships, or casual conversations with others: “In these cases, it might be helpful to prompt a child with questions for how they can be curious about another person's own interests to build on their initial connection,” she says.

“You can explain what’s going on inside your child for that other sibling, sister, brother, cousin, peer, and also explain what’s going on inside of the other person, when needed. There has to be some practice at the give and the take, and whose turn it is to really explore their special interests and enjoy it with them. Instead, we always want to do that in a way that’s additive and serves a goal that the autistic person has, rather than saying, ‘This is how you make a friend.’”

This can look like asking directing questions between the child and another person to help the child build curiosity about others:

• What do you think the other person is saying?
• What do they like?
• Do you think that this person likes this topic?
• How can you tell? Did they smile? What did they say?
• Do you agree or disagree, and why?
• Do you think they want to talk about something else?

Parents, she acknowledges, all have their own limits for listening to lists of facts or watching the same movie over and over, and that’s okay. Establishing compassionate limits can benefit not only the child, but the rest of the family who don’t always have the capacity to let the child share a deep dive with them.

What is info dumping?

Some children with autism or ADHD may “info dump” on others when in conversation, where they share a huge amount of information about a topic like a monologue, without leaving a lot of room for reciprocal conversation. Though this is communication, Rosas adds that children don’t necessarily think that info dumping is a way to meet new people. “I don’t know that it’s an attempt at socialization, but it more so speaks to the connection that you have with that individual. If you are on the receiving end of an info dump, that person probably feels really comfortable with you and safe with you and connected to you.”

The person receiving the info dump, however, may not always recognize this as a sign of trust, and part of building social skills for children with special interests is helping them recognize when to stop. Figuring out when and where a child can info dump, Rosas says, is a collaborative process. “We also don’t want to put our kids in vulnerable situations where they might be criticized or bullied or hurt.” Rather than deciding whether a child can info dump, “it’s when and where to info dump. Who is a good person to info dump to, and what are the times of days so that the child really has a structured understanding of what’s safe.”

The double empathy problem

A lot of early diagnostic and social discourse around autism emphasized that language and communication are often “problems” for people with autism or other disabilities, focusing on rigid language, narrow topics, and inability to read the physical and verbal cues of neurotypical people. But as Dr. Damian Milton theorized in 2012, the double empathy problem posits that both neurodivergent and neurotypical people can misinterpret aspects of the other’s communication style, removing the onus for only neurodivergent people to adapt their communication style.

“It’s not that autistic individuals have deficits in their social communication,” says Rosas. “It’s that there’s a mismatch between neurotypical communication styles and autistic communication styles.” Many neurodivergent people, she adds, understand each other just fine and can communicate across various topics just as two neurotypical people can. “If we think about it through that lens, it’s important again that we’re coaching both sides, that both sides understand that there are differences in communication styles.” If a neurodivergent child wants to work on their social skills with neurotypical peers, that’s wonderful. But, Rosas adds, “it has to come from genuine, authentic wanting [of] that type of engagement and that curiosity.”

As we discuss more in our tips and resources sections, many parents and educators can incorporate teachings on neurodivergent communication as well, sharing the effort with their peers.

Not all children need a big social circle

All parents want their children to find their people and go through life with a circle of loved ones, and the anxiety of isolation due to their child’s special interest remains a primary concern. While there are plenty of ways that special interests can lead to friendships, romantic relationships, and community, the truth is that not every neurodivergent child wants to share their special interest with others. On top of that, Dr. Ratto says, the child may not even want to build a huge network of friends.

“Not every person who has an interest like this wants it to be a social interest. I love to crochet,” she says, but “I am not part of a crochet club. That is a solo activity, and that is okay. I am not required to socially share that interest.”

One of the biggest anxieties parents (not children) have when it comes to special interests is the association with younger, “childish” topics. Their love for a character or program aimed at younger children, for example, might negatively impact a child’s ability to make friends and find a job because of a perception that the interest isn’t age-appropriate. The question many sources for this article posed was, what does age-appropriate even mean?

In this clip, Dr. Angoff deconstructs the meaning of age-appropriate.

“What we consider to be age-appropriate is something that has emerged out of our social norms, but it’s not an objective truth, and we use different words depending on the lens that we’re looking through.” And with those norms comes anxieties about alienation and understanding. Drs. Angoff and Fawcett say that many things that are seemingly “childish” for a person with a disability are socially acceptable for neurotypical people. “Disney adults,” for example, are adults who frequently attend Disney theme parks, attend Disney-related events like conventions, and engage with Disney media, but they are rarely spoken about as having a special interest or a potential developmental disability.

Dr. Angoff adds, “When somebody has a diagnostic label, we’re worried about age-appropriate, [and] I think we need to throw that term out the window, because it’s so relative to the context that we are looking at.” As with the language of “obsession” versus “passion,” calling something age-appropriate can often be a reflection of a person’s preconceived notions rather than a true evaluation. “Just by shifting our language from ‘childish’ to ‘nostalgic’ or a ‘niche interest’ or something that they are passionate about, all these terminologies really shift our lens to thinking about these interests as something that is comforting, self-regulating, and a way to find your people and connections.”

While there isn’t enough systematic research on the subject, Dr. Ratto has noticed firsthand that many children gravitate toward younger-demographic programming because its repetitive structure satisfies a neurodiverse brain’s need for predictability. Dora the Explorer, for example, always has a conflict that she overcomes and then finds her way home. Shows or movies a child watches in their younger years may remain something they rewatch or revisit again and again.

“From my clinical experience, [it] is less about gravitating to a younger thing at a later age and more about hanging on to something that you loved in childhood and not outgrowing it. So if you’re a person who likes predictability, your brain gravitates toward that automatically. You have this thing as a child, and you’ve maybe memorized all the episodes anyway. Letting go of that is going to feel really hard, and sticking with it and continuing to celebrate it and love it is going to be really appealing,” Dr. Ratto says.

Just like neurotypical people, those with a disability such as autism or Down syndrome may engage with media or items from their childhood, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a special interest. “Some of these younger interests will dissipate a bit over time, but they actually will come back at times when the person needs comfort,” says Dr. Fawcett. “If they are going through something tough, if they got in trouble at school, or if they’ve had a death in their family, they will go back to those things for comfort. I actually use it as a sign that the person needs a little bit more mental health support at this time.”

In this clip, Dr. Fawcett explains the importance of recognizing the implications of language like “childish” when describing special interests.

“Happiness appropriate”

Dr. Fawcett says that, for many children with Down syndrome or autism who have special interests, the child’s biological and developmental ages can diverge significantly, making it harder to define how age relates to the maturity of their interests. “This idea of age-appropriate, we could change that to being developmentally appropriate. I would not expect a 16-year-old with Down syndrome to socialize in the same way, to interact in the same way, all of those things the same way that a typically developing teenager would, because that’s not where they’re at.” Rather than worry about a child liking something that doesn’t align with their age, consider whether the child is actually deriving joy from that interest and complementing their growth in other areas. Dr. Fawcett prefers to use the “happiness-appropriate” metric, a term coined by April Perri, a mother to multiple children with disabilities.

Beyond the developmental aspects of “childish” special interests, Dr. Fawcett adds that many adults in a child’s life, from their parents to their teachers to their care team, can fall into a trap of unintentionally patronizing or infantilizing a person with a disability and their special interest. Their age becomes less important than understanding how they’re developing, and their interests may better align with their development.

“We are talking about teens and adults in most of these cases, and they don’t want to be referred to as being childish — that would be really upsetting for most of our adults. So, we like to think about a person’s chronological age versus their developmental age. You can be 16, but your developmental age might be younger than that,” she says.

She notes that a delay in development doesn’t only mean that a child’s age doesn’t match their developmental stage. “We call it an intellectual delay or a developmental delay, but in actual fact, it’s not just late; it’s also progressing more slowly. Because of that, somebody may stay at a more youthful stage for longer than somebody who does not have an intellectual disability. So it’s very natural and expected for people with Down syndrome or other intellectual disabilities to be interested in things that are a bit younger.”

For neurotypical parents, or just parents who grew up in a different time, it can be hard to cast off preconceived notions of how people should derive happiness. As Dr. Davis says, the world is changing. “Parents can really have a talk with themselves about those fears that may be coming from an older time and place where there wasn’t as much societal acceptance, there wasn’t as much employer acceptance. I might need to have some accommodations for people who have certain strengths, but also certain challenges and needs,” but none of those fears are insurmountable, Dr. Davis says.

We all know that too much of a good thing can become a bad thing, and special interests aren’t beyond that. But Dr. Angoff, Dr. Ratto, and others agree that parents should never approach broadening their child’s interest with a replacement or intervention approach; similarly, they need to recognize that they cannot control whether a child will be receptive.

When it comes to exposing a child to new topics, Dr. Angoff emphasizes that it should stem from an existing foundation of support. “We can add on to those interests. We can expose them to different things that they may like, but we would never want to shut down or replace that interest that they have,” she says. “By shutting it down and saying, ‘You shouldn’t do this if you want friends; you should do this,’ we’re starting a shame cycle that is going to be really, really hard to break. But if we want to expand your friends, we can expand your activities; let’s look at a variety of different activities that are related, that are tangential.”

This isn’t just a matter of preference, Dr. Ratto adds, but other DSM-5 symptoms for autism include a need for routine and sameness, which can make transitions or changes harder.

“New things can be hard for autistic people,” she says. “The conversation is not ‘You are going to love this Broadway musical,’ but ‘I would like you to try this Broadway musical because I think you might like it, and it’s something I really enjoy.’” Dr. Ratto suggests that parents can do a pairing or bookend approach, much like they might use to help expand a child’s food palate. If the goal is to try and expose a child who loves the movie Frozen to a more adult production like the Broadway musical Hamilton, for example, they can stagger the interests by starting with Frozen, watching some of Hamilton, and returning to Frozen if or when the child asks. The point is not convincing them to like it, but honoring their capacity to try or not try.

“You offer repeatedly, you offer gently, you celebrate it, you try it in different ways, in different formats, in different settings, and you give them that opportunity to experience it,” says Dr. Ratto. “If they finally try, you are thrilled and you’re excited. If they try it and they don’t like it, you’re thrilled and you’re excited. The only way we find new interests to be passionate about is by trying them, so we take the pressure off of it to be this new interest and instead as a family we’re going to try things.”

As Mary Falvey, PhD, Emerita Professor from the Division of Special Education and Counseling at California State University Los Angeles, explains in our article Socialization and Inclusion: Nurturing Authentic Peer Relationships, identifying why our kids like the things they do can help us introduce similar interests that help them relate with their peers. Try getting a sense of what your child likes about it. Is it the story, the music? Then try to match it with something a little more age-appropriate. They might just need a way to broaden their perspectives.

If a child resists external encouragement to change their interests and tastes, then let it be, Rosas adds. As the research we’ve cited indicates, special interests do change throughout a neurodivergent person’s lifetime, both in their intensity and in the topic at hand. “As their cognitive development furthers, as they age and have more experiences, their special interests can become even deeper and more nuanced,” says Rosas. “Maybe when you were four, you were obsessed with the wheels of a train, but then you start growing and that interest starts broadening, and now you’re really interested in maps, and then you become really interested in civil planning and architecture.” To assume that a special interest will dictate a child’s life makes it all the harder for that child to see all the possibilities that special interests give them.

Asking a child to disengage from a special interest can have similar outcomes to trying to suppress a child’s stimming. As we wrote in our article Should You Stop Your Child’s Stimming?, responses can include heightened anxiety, a need for self-regulation, and shame. One of the only truly warranted situations for attempting to change or redirect a child’s special interest is if it’s interfering with the child’s functioning and causing them clear signs of dysregulation. “It can be challenging when there are everyday things that need to happen,” says Rosas. “It can be challenging to shift from one thing to another, especially when it’s something that’s not as exciting or fun.”

In this clip, Dr. Burton-Hoyle explains the importance of structuring special interests and what can happen when they aren’t structured.

Sometimes that just needs to look like giving more clear verbal communication on when and where a child can enjoy their special interest and creating a new layer of predictability for them. This could be setting a timer in the morning for play or research time, but establishing that once the timer goes off, they have to get dressed for school.

Rosas suggests saying something like, “You’re welcome to do this and we could talk about it, but once this timer goes off, we do need to get in the car. We could keep talking about it in the car, or we’ll talk about it again on the way home when I pick you up.” She continues, “They will need more support in order to be able to transition to something else, and then always let them know when [they] are going to be able to come back to it.”

If you truly believe a special interest is negatively impacting your child, the first step should be talking with your child directly. Some questions Dr. Angoff recommends parents ask themselves before considering intervention are:

• What is this interest doing for my child?
• How is it helpful to them emotionally, socially, academically, and personally?
• What do I notice when they are engaged in that interest? What’s different about them?
• Does their interest help them access and feel their most authentic self?
• Are there signs of anxiety or distress after they engage with their special interest?

From there, speaking to your child’s therapist or inquiring about a therapist with their pediatrician can help you determine next steps.

Other rare situations, Dr. Burton-Hoyle adds, might reflect a deeper clinical condition that needs support. While not every professional might agree, she says that certain kinds of special interest may warrant a more direct intervention approach.

“If I had an individual who was interested in illegal, unethical, or immoral kinds of things,” such as adult materials, weapons, or violent online communities, she says, she would recommend immediately contacting a clinician. “Once they go down that dark hole, then they’re not sleeping, they’re not eating, they’re not taking their meds as they’re supposed to. If you can’t control how it is they’re [engaging], then it’s something you really need to watch out for.”

Anxiety over special interests usually skews toward concerns based on perceived immaturity, but rarely do families get insight into how to approach a special interest that is “too adult” for a child. Sometimes, Dr. Ratto says, these can look like a child’s interest in a specific period of history despite them being only 10 years old, or deep diving into niche scientific topics well before they learn about them in school. But there are other cases, Dr. Davis adds, where the interest itself may cross a family’s boundaries, including interests in weapons or adult websites.

While it is rare, she advises parents to discuss additional services with the child’s care team if the special interests are “things that could bring a lot of risk of harm to the person, and that young person doesn’t have the abstract thinking capabilities yet to be on the same page with the parents about potential harm.” If a child likes weapons, for example, their continued interest and research could lead to riskier situations or misconstrued conversations. “Families do have to step in and figure out for that family and for that child, ‘How are we going to redirect? How are we going to set a schedule boundary or a total boundary on things that are too risky or dangerous at a certain age?’”

It goes without saying, but parents shouldn’t expect these interventions to be easy or smooth. “Parents have to have patience with themselves,” says Dr. Davis. “They’re not going to always do it the right way. They’re not going to always avoid dysregulating moments, but we find our way through over time. We see it as a process together of co-regulating, coming to greater and greater understanding of how to work with [the] child, and helping them get more understanding, more comprehension, more flexibility.”

These boundaries don’t need to last forever and can adapt as a child ages and matures. It may be, for example, that researching weapons before bed causes them to have nightmares, which impacts their sleep and can then throw them off the routines that help keep them regulated. While younger children should have their interests more closely monitored and managed, the same topic may be safer once that child is an adolescent.

Bullying is an unfortunately real possibility for any child, but statistically, even more so for a child with a disability. A special interest can make a child more vulnerable to teasing or negative peer attention, but all interventions should begin with speaking to your child and working with their school to address the issue.

Drs. Angoff and Ratto believe that greater recognition of and information about special interests at school can help both educators and students better understand their neurodivergent students/peers and how to connect with them. “It’s something that all school practitioners need to be aware of and be looking out for in creating school culture that supports all kinds of differences,” says Dr. Angoff. “For so long, we’ve been asking, ‘How do we help our neurodivergent kids get in line with the neurotypical kids?’ But we can flip that on its head and say, ‘How do we help the neurotypical kids understand the neurodivergent kids?’”

Implementing a lesson plan about neurodiversity, she adds, helps everyone in the situation have the language to effectively discuss the value in everyone’s unique abilities. “Everybody has highways where their brain is going fast and the connections are really smooth, and everybody has construction projects of the things that they’re working on. We can do classwide lessons where we realize the diverse highways that we have in our class or classroom, what everybody here has to offer, and how we can support each other. I think it goes a long way and really helps to get at the root of the teasing.”

On a peer level, the odds of a child finding someone at school who shares their interests are actually pretty high. Depending on the child’s age (both biological and developmental), teachers and other school professionals can help parents facilitate connections. These can be through common social opportunities, like themed clubs or groups, Dr. Angoff says, such as encouraging (not forcing) a child who likes Bluey to try out the animation or cartoon club. But it can also come from putting students together who may not have ever met organically.

“You’d be surprised how often you can find somebody else who has a related interest. I’m often asking teachers, ‘Do you know anybody else at the school who has a related interest? Can we pair these kids up, even if they are in different grades?’ There might be another kid, or there might be a kid that graduated two years ago but can come and do some mentoring for our child.”

Dr. Angoff explains, “Somebody who can validate your interests, somebody who can go there with you, who is not bored by you talking about what you’re passionate about, somebody who can really give you that space to be authentic and to explore. For our kid who’s into fashion, it may be the art teacher; for another kid who’s really into bats, it might be the science teacher. You’d be surprised how many adults have special interests of their own they are pursuing outside of school that may be related or may even be the same.”

Special education advocate Dr. Sarah Pelangka shared with us previously that other children need to be taught acceptance, too. That means embracing and supporting children’s unique interests rather than encouraging them to change who they are to fit in. Learn how celebrating individuality can build confidence and foster inclusion for kids with different passions and strengths.

Outside of school, it’s important to help a child understand that any negative attention they receive isn’t a reflection of them, nor does it mean that their interests have to change. “When a neurodivergent kid is bullied for their interests, the target is the bullying and the teasing, not the child with the interest; the target of the intervention is the kids who are saying inappropriate things,” says Dr. Angoff. “The behavior that is inappropriate is bullying and teasing, not their interests.”

Dr. Hazlett adds that as a parent of a child who has autism, the parental role can be tricky, knowing that autism and other disabilities are still vastly misunderstood. But helping a child put on some proverbial “armor” to protect against potential bullies isn’t the whole of it. The child has to know how to accept themselves.

If your child wants to connect with other people around their special interest, you don’t necessarily have to wait for those opportunities to come up on their own. Parents can proactively look for — or even create — spaces where their child can meet people who share their interests. Here are a few places to start:

• Look at in-person school and community groups that relate to the child’s interests, like chess or D&D clubs.
• With parental supervision, children can access online communities, like Facebook groups for Bluey or message boards for anime characters, which can give children a place to openly discuss why the show’s emotional depth and sensory gentleness works for them. Dr. Bradley’s former special interest in religion and her subsequent personal deconstruction of it led her to find like-minded friends online.
• Seek out or create lunchtime social clubs: if a child’s school doesn’t already have established clubs for their interests, parents could consider seeking support from organizations such as the Friendship Foundation. This can also apply to extracurricular activities or electives, such as a music class if they want to practice their instrument or drama class if they love a particular movie. Learn more about creating lunchtime social clubs in our article here.
• Explore comic-cons and other group events. Plenty of all-ages events exist for all kinds of special interests, including conventions dedicated to certain media franchises, themed events like Renaissance fairs, or local gatherings such as fiber art circles.
• Find a meetup group of kids with similar diagnoses. Part of Dr. Bradley’s retirement was due to autistic burnout, a state of chronic stress where people with autism may regress in certain skill areas as a means of self-regulation. Now that her special interest isn’t as tied up in her career, Dr. Bradley has turned to researching other topics, including autism. She also regularly attends an “adults with autism” meeting with others who can discuss not only the special interest itself, but what it’s like to have one.