Aria Chowdhury, BA
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
"Special interests (SIs) are a key feature of autism (ASD), yet their role in adulthood is unclear. While often framed as restrictive, SIs may be adaptive for functioning (Grove et al., 2018). We hypothesized that adults with ASD would more often describe SIs as helping manage emotions/sensory input, support daily life, and shape identity relative to typically developing (TD) adults.
20–30-min open-ended interviews (Bilgrami et al., 2025) were conducted with 64 adults with ASD and 42 TD adults (N=106). Transcripts were queried using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) (Lewis et al., 2020) in NotebookLM, which uses Gemini 3 to categorize speech. The model identified SI-related excerpts describing emotion/sensory management, work/social support, and statements linking SIs to identity (e.g., “this is who I am”).
RAG analysis showed that adults with ASD more often described SIs as helping manage anxiety and sensory overload and as central to identity (e.g., “I’m a reader”), but that both groups described work/social benefits at similar rates. Adults with ASD reported higher trait anxiety (55.33 vs. 39.78, p
20–30-min open-ended interviews (Bilgrami et al., 2025) were conducted with 64 adults with ASD and 42 TD adults (N=106). Transcripts were queried using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) (Lewis et al., 2020) in NotebookLM, which uses Gemini 3 to categorize speech. The model identified SI-related excerpts describing emotion/sensory management, work/social support, and statements linking SIs to identity (e.g., “this is who I am”).
RAG analysis showed that adults with ASD more often described SIs as helping manage anxiety and sensory overload and as central to identity (e.g., “I’m a reader”), but that both groups described work/social benefits at similar rates. Adults with ASD reported higher trait anxiety (55.33 vs. 39.78, p
