AWESOME article about ASD workers in the NY Times

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For Some With Autism, Jobs to Match Their Talents

good article! it's true that systems testing is a great job for people with ASDs. I've been doing it for 2 years and can honestly say that I don't think any neurotypical could match my diversion-from-pattern spotting skills, not to mention meticulousness in repetitive tasks that most would quickly bore with (mind you though, I'm not diagnosed with an ASD, just ADD with added extreme introversion). I've actually suggested Specialisterne to my boss for some outsourcing tasks as I'm getting overloaded with work. definitely a career path I would recommend to WP users.

Thanks for posting this!

The writer did a follow-up a couple of days later http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/building-a-more-inclusive-work-force/

thanks for the article, specialisterne opened a branch here last year and seems to be doing really well. I'm hoping to get a job there in the future.

Yeah... it certainly doesn't suit all with AS. I left that ****hole when it became apparent it was the same 'special needs for people dumber than us normal people' program as always, more about forcing people with AS into being more normal than ever getting around to making use of our strengths. There's still the system into which you must fit. And while they provide individual solutions to problems encountered by those with AS... those individual solutions are tailored around individuals who are all the same. I.e., don't be different from other people, the system can't handle that as all individuals regardless of neurology are all the same.

You just need to stop being so difficult and become more social so we can do fun stuff together - and go eat together, and go to the gym together, and do fun recreational things on Fridays together. I've had less social pressure/requirements in... oh, every single NT workplace I've ever worked in. The NT workplaces, quite frankly no one wanted to spend any more time with their coworkers than they absolutely had to - this program seemed to be all about having fun being social together like us AS people are so famous for. It being one of our traditional strength which should be built upon.

I for one got sick of being spoken to as though I were a mentally challenged 8 year old who had no rights to have opinions of my own and needed to be persuaded by the kind gentle care-giving professionals who clearly knew what I liked and what sensory issues bothered me way better than I did. Face to face only, because email, or phone, or text of any kind - yeah, no, we just do things verbally face to face... because... that's just how we do it. That's totally what works for people with AS.

The instructions... oh man. They were as clear, concise and easy to follow as the map of my University. My University didn't have a map. At all. To this day I don't know where the computer labs were in Uni. I tried pointing out that the instructions were confusing, so scattered and ill-worded as to be useless. That didn't matter - and everyone else seemed to do OK so clearly it wasn't a problem right? They were what they got from the Danes. Thus, that was what was to be used and nothing could be done to clarify them. Poorly translated instructions from Danes that made no sense to me at all. If those instructions had been a map of my University - it would have been drawn as a collaborative effort between Salvatore Dali and MC Escher for all the logical sense it made and practical use it provided.

See, (insert condescending talking-to-the-retard-voice) sometimes in the real world workplace you'll get very vague job assignments where you get absolutely no information or data to work with and have to 'design' things to such an extend that you even have to make up the name of the company you're doing things for and this is just a part of normal every day work that you have to suck up and get used to because that's what you AS people do best! Every person I showed this to who'd done actual design work looked at this and said "I don't get it? And why are they using the word design like this? If this came from a client I'd never take the job".

I guess if I had no technical aptitude, zero education and no independent thought or will of my own this would be awesome. And hey, my formal education is already pretty low, what with flunking out of everything except the SysAdmin AA course... but y'know, since the Bachelor's guys in the Scotland project didn't have any issues with the projects... well my opinion clearly didn't matter (this is what I was actually told). I'd get to play with Word and put data into columns in Excel!! ! YAYYY!! ! Ever since setting up an Oracle database and getting a variety of servers up and running for my SysAdmin courses I'd always dreamed of being asked to make pretty make-believe papers in Word and making cute logos in Office and doing data entry. I especially loved the veiled threats that I better come in and be nice to everyone because I'd want to be able to go back there when I came crawling back. Because clearly I will go crawling back to a place where my AS related issues were dismissed as "something everyone goes through", I was spoken to as though I were a child and generally felt regarded as being inferior/lesser than the NTs there.

I was cautiously excited about this, and it all went to crap for the exact same reasons every job/school with NTs went to crap. Nothing could be done to accommodate me any more than in anything else (heck, less could be done than in the trade school I went to that had a rep for being utter crap), but it's cool, the guys who were significantly impaired enjoyed the arts and crafts so it's all good, no big loss. So if you go into this, maybe it's for you. But just be warned that it's not nearly as flexible a system as they make it sound. You apparently need to fit in NT style, shut your mouth about things that confuse you or frustrate you and never complain of sensory issues because 'everyone has those and they go away with time'. And it's not a case where the highest functioning will necessarily do best in.