
Beautiful minds, wasted: how not to squander the potential of autistic people - the_duck
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21696944-how-not-squander-potential-autistic-people-beautiful-minds-wasted
======
AdmiralAsshat
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.

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.

~~~
forgetsusername
> _the expectation that every autistic person_

People seem to accept stereotypes when they're positive.

~~~
serge2k
Are they even that positive?

There always seems to be this underlying "yeah they are freaks, but you can
take advantage of their weird behaviour".

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6stringmerc
> _A debate rages about when and how to include autistic children in
> mainstream classes._

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.

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.

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.

~~~
souljaswag
what kind of physical ailment?

~~~
6stringmerc
Inherited and incurable, that's the most I disclose publicly. I grew up in a
pre-HIPAA world and still keep some things as private as possible.

------
djrobstep
I do wish people would stop romanticizing autism with phrases like "beautiful
minds".

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.

~~~
dghf
"If you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism." \--
Stephen Shore, professor of special education at Adelphi University and person
with autism.

~~~
Kenji
Of what use is a classification system when the elements belonging to the same
class have no general, discernible commonalities?

~~~
theoh
Psychiatric classifications do tend to be problematic because personality is
so complex. It's not like botany.

~~~
Kenji
I agree. I wish the field of psychiatry would address these problems honestly
and scientifically, rather than inventing and voting disorders into their
manual.

~~~
Silfen
The DSM exists for billing purposes. It's not exactly a scientific taxonomy of
psychiatric disorders.

------
skynatnet
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.

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.

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.

FYI Sorry For the bad spelling I reviewed this for 30 min, and fixed
everything I could find.

~~~
kwhitefoot
> Sorry For the bad spelling I reviewed this for 30 min, and fixed everything
> I could find.

But a spelling checker, such as the one built in to Firefox, would have found
them all as you typed. Why is it that almost no one uses them?

~~~
NoGravitas
Most of the spelling errors in their post were 'wrong word' errors, aka the
[Cupertino effect][0]. A spell checker would not have found those. It's
possible they were also relying on auto-completion, which increases this type
of error.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupertino_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupertino_effect)

------
pepijndevos
> 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.

This makes me both laugh and cry.

~~~
paulmd
It makes intuitive sense that there's a bias towards mild autism/Aspergers in
high-skill computer scientists.

Most would probably say that their "education" began long before any kind of
formal schooling in the topic. It takes a certain kind of child to stay inside
and poke at computers all day instead of going outside and doing something
social. And in general, the hyper-focus of mild autism is exactly the kind of
thing that drives people to become highly proficient in a technical topic.

And on the flip side, severe autism is a nightmare. Although modern society
doesn't really do them any favors - historically there were lots of repetitive
tasks that needed doing, a person with fairly severe autism could be perfectly
fine working in a bakery or blacksmithing or something. Nowadays we really
have two kinds of jobs - high skilled, for which we expect people to sit
through a lot of formal education, and service jobs, which are highly social
jobs usually involving "emotional labor". Neither of those is very suitable
for someone with severe autism.

~~~
morgante
> It takes a certain kind of child to stay inside and poke at computers all
> day instead of going outside and doing something social.

a) Why do you assume that working on computers at a young age necessarily
implies social impairment? I've been working on different ideas (particularly
games and businesses) with friends since I was 12.

b) Many sports also require hyper-focus to excel at a young age. If you're
willing to use that as a criterion for autism, why aren't exceptional athletes
who spend hours a day shooting hoops alone considered autistic?

------
the-dude
Dutch software agency specialised in testing, employing autists only:
[http://specialisterren.nl/socialenterprise/introductie.html](http://specialisterren.nl/socialenterprise/introductie.html)
[dutch]

------
mason240
>Firms that set out to recruit autistic workers, such as Walgreen’s, a big
pharmacy chain, find them just as productive as their peers.

I did not know that Walgreen’s does that.

~~~
DiabloD3
Sadly, they do it for their own benefit. It ticks boxes they need to tick for
Federal law and tax reasons.

Do not think they do this out of the kindness of their heart.

~~~
reitanqild
> Sadly, they do it for their own benefit.

Around here a consulting company has specialised in this (you don't get an
interview unless you have an autism spectrum diagnosis) and last I heard it
wasn't at all sad:

Some autistic people with correct skills were paid _good money_ to do things
they really liked well like iron out rare bugs in financial services etc.

So not only to fill some quota and not taken advantage of. Oh, and said
company made good money IIRC.

~~~
DiabloD3
The context was Walgreens. Some companies _are_ smart enough to hire high
functioning autists to hammer down hard to nail bugs. Most aren't.

~~~
reitanqild
The only part I tried to nuance was that "for their own benefit" doesn't
always mean pure evil.

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nils-m-holm
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.

[http://auticon.de](http://auticon.de) \- not affiliated.

------
kwhitefoot
How about just not squandering the potential of people?

~~~
an_ko
Could you expand on your ideas for improvement?

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ecmendenhall
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:
[http://www.businessinsider.com/startup-hires-people-on-
autis...](http://www.businessinsider.com/startup-hires-people-on-autism-
spectrum-2014-7)

------
morgante
> The current estimate is one in 68—or one in 42 among boys.

Does anyone know where these numbers come from? It's much higher than I would
have expected.

------
grillvogel
those are more people that could be working for corporations! we must right
this wrong!

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KON_Air
>one in 42 boys...38 in S.Korea

Are we calling every socially awkward kid autistic or did we, as humanity,
finally "done did" the genepool?

~~~
maldusiecle
Leaving aside the tastelessness of phrasing the question this way, you may be
underestimating the prevalence of mental health disorders in general. This is
the NIMH's page on the prevalence of schizophrenia in the general population,
for instance:
[http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/schizop...](http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/schizophrenia.shtml)

It sounds like the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders is a bit over
double that, but as the article notes, that includes "functional" autists
whose symptoms may be hardly noticeable to those around them.

~~~
KON_Air
Let me rephrase it, are we diagnosing these disorders wrongly or are we
heading towards a human population which has more people with disorders then
not? Because 1 in 38 or 42 are scary numbers.

~~~
GrumpyYoungMan
I don't think that's a meaningful question. One could go back a couple of
centuries, before germ and virus theory was developed, and ask the same thing
about physical illnesses.

It would be more accurate IMO to say that we're getting a better understanding
of traits and characteristics of the human mind, some of which we currently
have reason to believe are disorders, and are getting better at detecting
those traits/characteristics.

