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Boredom and Asperger's

Jon

Hi I was wondering what thoughts other people with Asperger's have regarding 'boredom'.

I think the function of boredom is to make you do seomthing else. It is also linked with your reward process.

I am not sure that I easily recognise when I am or should be bored. i can find myself doing the same thing again and again or just not able to do anything - sort of in limbo or adrift. I find that routine and planning ahead really helps with focus and enables me to operate better. I don't often feel a sense of achievement or reward and therfore this may result in my not easily defining bored and not bored. I am making this sound more simple than it maybe really is.

Any thoughts?

Parents

  • The only thing I wouldn't agree with in Longmans post is the stuff about reward.

    In fact I think you have it completely the wrong way round, Longman.

    It's known that, in general, people on the spectrum are reward motivated.

    However, 'reward' can simply be 'what we enjoy doing' (or, in other words, our 'special interest(s)').

    Therefore, I think we don't get bored because we get into a reward-driven motivational spiral - the more we do the thing we enjoy the more rewarded we feel and the more motivated we are to continue doing that thing.

    Whereas, I believe, neurotypicals, in general, seem more motivated by punishment - i.e. they do stuff to prevent bad things from happening, not because they enjoy, or are otherwise rewarded, by the thing they are doing.

    Hence they get bored, because, as long as they're either doing one thing, or not doing anything, there's always something they feel they should be doing instead to stop some bad thing or other from happening.

    Of course, these are generalisations, and so there are bound to be exceptions in both the autistic and neurotypical populations.

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  • The only thing I wouldn't agree with in Longmans post is the stuff about reward.

    In fact I think you have it completely the wrong way round, Longman.

    It's known that, in general, people on the spectrum are reward motivated.

    However, 'reward' can simply be 'what we enjoy doing' (or, in other words, our 'special interest(s)').

    Therefore, I think we don't get bored because we get into a reward-driven motivational spiral - the more we do the thing we enjoy the more rewarded we feel and the more motivated we are to continue doing that thing.

    Whereas, I believe, neurotypicals, in general, seem more motivated by punishment - i.e. they do stuff to prevent bad things from happening, not because they enjoy, or are otherwise rewarded, by the thing they are doing.

    Hence they get bored, because, as long as they're either doing one thing, or not doing anything, there's always something they feel they should be doing instead to stop some bad thing or other from happening.

    Of course, these are generalisations, and so there are bound to be exceptions in both the autistic and neurotypical populations.

Children
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