There's a disturbing trend emerging that I really don't like, and it's not the conventional "autistic people will not make good workers" argument. In fact, it's something of an inverse: the expectation that every autistic person you hire is going to be an idiot-savant that will have unparalleled focus and attention to detail once you hire them.<p>Autistic people are still people. They make mistakes. They're not robots. I'm glad we've moved away from blacklisting them, but we're getting to the point of fetishizing them instead. Both directions are still dehumanizing.
><i>A debate rages about when and how to include autistic children in mainstream classes.</i><p>Oh does this ever bring up a whole bag full of unpleasant childhood memories. I get that it's difficult for those with disabilities to function in 'normal' settings - I've got a physical handicap that is obvious from time to time (but hidden otherwise). In turn I never sought out activities for which I was an incorrect fit - you know, hockey, wrestling, soccer - they weren't going to change the sport to make it easier for me to play, nor should I expect them to. We are not all equal.<p>If there's a way to solve the mentioned debate, I think it will still take another 40 years for us to figure it out. We can't even take care of Gifted and Talented students with any systemic, national and local support, to fulfill their potential. If we're talking "beautiful minds" going to waste then, honestly, I think we should start with this end of the spectrum.<p>This article is, by and large, a plea for help and paints an extensively rosy and joyous picture of employing a person with the mentioned handicap. After half of my lifetime + change working in hourly or professional jobs, I did not particularly share the same optimism. Good help is hard to find, and that's before even considering "making little accommodations" for potentially disruptive conditions. I'm just not quite so optimistic, but would love to see society figure a lot of this stratified talent capitalization out sooner rather than later.
I do wish people would stop romanticizing autism with phrases like "beautiful minds".<p>From personal experience, I can tell you that there is nothing too beautiful about growing up with a brother who never stopped throwing tantrums like a toddler, whose intelligence never developed beyond about three years old, and who without the right medication won't stop hitting his own forehead and barking like a dog.
5 years reading fist post. Has anyone ever thought of not putting so much effort on so called education. Many of tease beautiful minds are able to do things without the academics that others go though to become Qualified in. Where as when you try to force them to go though school they are unable to adapt to that completely unrelated medium of learning.<p>Me personaly I dropped out of High school on my 6th year because I was unable to get past 9th grade English. Never got though collage never got my GED, and not due to a lack of trying. I am now in my 3rd engineering job not in title but in the work I preform. 1st structural engineer, 2nd Mechanical engineer, and now Systems engineer. I am not going to try to clam to be a genius but I do find myself ecelling above some of the engineers who delegate there projects to me.<p>There are so many fields out there where these people not just the autistic can learn to do just by doing. The only reason they are stuck flipping burgers is because we have this preconception that you can not learn without a certificate form a institution of Higher education.<p>FYI Sorry For the bad spelling I reviewed this for 30 min, and fixed everything I could find.
> The range of consequences is also wide. At one end, the autism of a computer scientist may be barely noticeable; at the other, a quarter of autistic children do not speak.<p>This makes me both laugh and cry.
>Firms that set out to recruit autistic workers, such as Walgreen’s, a big pharmacy chain, find them just as productive as their peers.<p>I did not know that Walgreen’s does that.
The German company "auticon" is employing autistic consultants exclusively (medical diagnosis required). Recently, I happened to talk to one of their in-house coaches, and from what I've heard, they seem to make quite an effort to create a work environment in which people with autism can thrive.<p><a href="http://auticon.de" rel="nofollow">http://auticon.de</a> - not affiliated.
I work with a manual QA team who explicitly recruit testers on the autism spectrum. It's a great mission and they've done great work: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/startup-hires-people-on-autism-spectrum-2014-7" rel="nofollow">http://www.businessinsider.com/startup-hires-people-on-autis...</a>
> The current estimate is one in 68—or one in 42 among boys.<p>Does anyone know where these numbers come from? It's much higher than I would have expected.
>one in 42 boys...38 in S.Korea<p>Are we calling every socially awkward kid autistic or did we, as humanity, finally "done did" the genepool?