Thinking in pictures

At age two and a half I was enrolled in a nursery school for speech — handicapped children. It was staffed by an older, experienced speech therapist and another teacher. Each child received one-to-one work with the therapist while the teacher worked with the other five children. The teachers there knew how much to intrude gently into my world to snap me out of my daydreams and make me pay attention. Too much intrusion would cause tantrums, but without intervention there would be no progress. Autistic children will remain in their own little worlds if left to their own devices.

I would tune out, shut off my ears, and daydream. My daydreams were like Technicolor movies in my head. I would also become completely absorbed in spinning a penny or studying the wood — grain pattern on my desktop. During these times the rest of the world disappeared, but then my speech teacher would gently grab my chin to pull me back into the real world.

When I was three my mother hired a governess to take care of my younger sister and me. This woman kept us constantly occupied with games and outdoor activities and was an important part of my education and treatment. She actively participated in everything we did to encourage me to stay connected. We would make snowmen, play ball, jump rope, and go skating and sledding. When I got a little older, she painted pictures with us, which helped develop my interest in art. It is important for an autistic child to have structured activities both at home and at school. Meals were always at the same time, and we were taught good table manners. Our governess taught me at an early age to be polite, and safety rules were drilled into my head. I was taught to look both ways before I crossed the street. All kids have to learn that the street is dangerous, but autistic children need to learn everything by rote. One or two warnings won't do.

I was enrolled in a normal kindergarten at a small elementary school. Each class had only twelve to fourteen pupils and an experienced teacher who knew how to put firm but fair limits on children to control behavior. The day before I entered kindergarten, Mother attended the class and explained to the other children that they needed to help me. This prevented teasing and created a better learning environment. I am indebted to the good teachers at that school, who ran an old-fashioned, highly structured classroom, with lots of opportunity for interesting hands-on activities.

I vividly remember learning about the solar system by drawing it on the bulletin board and taking field trips to the science museum. Going to the science museum and doing experiments in my third- and fourth — grade classrooms made science real to me. The concept of barometric pressure was easy to understand after we made barometers out of milk bottles, rubber sheeting, and drinking straws. We taped the straw onto the rubber sheeting, which covered the mouth of the milk bottle. Changes in the air pressure pushed the rubber membrane up and down and made the straw move.

My teachers also encouraged my creativity. When I was in the fifth grade I helped make many of the costumes for the school play. I was good at painting and art. Both at home and at school I was praised and encouraged to work on this.

When I started school, I was still diagnosed with brain damage. The teachers were aware of my diagnosis and were willing to work with me even though they had had no training in special education. Two years of intensive teaching prior to kindergarten had prepared me for a normal school. I was now fully verbal, and many of the more severe autistic symptoms had disappeared. When an educational program is successful the child will act less autistic. I now would play with other children and had better control of my tantrums. However, I still had problems with them, especially when I got tired or became frustrated when a teacher didn't give me enough time to respond to a question. My mind processed information slowly, and answering a question quickly was difficult.

I was still a poor reader at age eight, when my mother tried a new approach. Every afternoon after school, I sat with her in the kitchen and she had me sound out the words in a book. After I learned the phonetic sounds and the rules, she read a paragraph out loud to me. Then I sounded out one or two words. Gradually she had me read longer and longer passages. We read from a real book that was interesting instead of a little kid's beginning book. I learned well with phonics, because I understood spoken language. It took me a long time to learn to read silently, though. Saying the words out loud helped me to keep the sequence organized. I also used to tell myself stories at night. Saying them out loud gave each story a sequence, which made them seem more real. Even in high school I would discuss philosophical concepts out loud with myself.

As I grew older, the people who were of the greatest assistance were always the more creative, unconventional types. Psychiatrists and psychologists were of little help. They were too busy trying to psychoanalyze me and discover my deep dark psychological problems. One psychiatrist thought if he could find my «psychic injury,» I would be cured. The high school psychologist wanted to stamp out my fixations on things like doors instead of trying to understand them and use them to stimulate learning.

It was Mr. Carlock, one of my science teachers, who became my most important mentor in high school. After I was thrown out of regular high school, my parents enrolled me in a small boarding school for gifted students with emotional problems. Even though I had scored 137 on the Wechsler IQ test when I was twelve, I was totally bored with schoolwork, and I continued to get lousy grades. The other teachers and professionals at the school wanted to discourage my weird interests and make me more normal, but Mr. Carlock took my interests and used them as motivators for doing schoolwork. When I talked about visual symbols such as doors, he gave me philosophy books.

Likewise, the psychologist and psychiatrist wanted me to get rid of my squeeze machine, but Mr. Carlock defended it and went a step further toward helping me direct my interests and energies. He told me that if I wanted to find out why it relaxed me, I had to learn science. If I studied hard enough to get into college, I would be able to learn why pressure had a relaxing effect. Instead of taking my weird device away, he used it to motivate me to study, get good grades, and go to college.

Mr. Carlock then introduced me to the scientific indexes, such as the Psychological Abstracts and the Index Medicus. Real scientists, I learned, do not use the World Book Encyclopedia. Through the indexes I could find the world's scientific literature. In the mid-sixties there were no computerized scientific indexes. We didn't even have photocopy machines in the public library. Each entry from an index had to be copied into a notebook by hand. Searching the scientific literature was real work in those days. Mr. Car-lock took me to the library and taught me how to do this and take the first step toward becoming a scientist. These were the books the real scientists used.

Mr. Carlock's training served me well. Later in life, when anxiety attacks were tearing me apart, I was able to research what medication I needed in the library. Through the Index Medicus I found the answers.

Many children with autism become fixated on various subjects. Some teachers make the mistake of trying to stamp out the fixation. Instead, they should broaden it and channel it into constructive activities. For example, if a child becomes infatuated with boats, then use boats to motivate him to read and do math. Read books about boats and do arithmetic problems on calculating boat speed. Fixations provide great motivation. Leo Kanner stated that the path to success for some people with autism was to channel their fixation into a career. One of his most successful patients became a bank teller. He was raised by a farm family who found goals for his number fixation. To motivate him to work in the fields, they let him count the rows of corn while the corn was being harvested.

Dr. Kanner also noted that an autistic person's fixations can be their way to achieve some social life and friends. Today, many people with autism become fascinated with computers and become very good at programming. An interest in computers can provide social contacts with other computer people. The Internet, the worldwide computer network, is wonderful for such people. Problems that autistic people have with eye contact and awkward gestures are not visible on the Internet, and typewritten messages avoid many of the social problems of face-to-face contact. The Internet may be the best thing yet for improving an autistic person's social life. Tom McKean said when he was a college student that computers were a godsend because he could communicate with other people and not have to concentrate on trying to talk normally.

Teachers need to help autistic children develop their talents. I think there is too much emphasis on deficits and not enough emphasis on developing abilities. For example, ability in art often shows up at an early age. At meetings, parents, teachers, and people with autism have given me astonishing drawings by very young children. Autistic children as young as seven will sometimes draw in three-dimensional perspective. One time I visited a school where a twenty-year-old autistic man was drawing beautiful airport pictures on notebook paper. Nobody was working with him to develop this talent. He should have been taking courses in drafting and computer drawing.

Tom McKean became frustrated during a college computer programming course because the professor flunked him for finding a better way to write a program. My guess is that the professor may have been offended by Tom's direct manner, not understanding that being direct to the point of rudeness sometimes is a characteristic of autism. Tom would walk up to the blackboard and erase and correct his professor's example. In his book Soon Will Come the Light, Tom wrote, «Look, if we did it this way instead, we could save four or five lines of code. If I was looking for a job as a programmer, I would not have been hired if I used the code he [the professor] insisted on.» Tom was frustrated and confused when he failed the course. A more creative professor would have challenged him with more interesting and difficult program writing.

Teenagers and adults with autism need to build on their strengths and use their interests. They should be encouraged to develop abilities in fields such as computer programming, engine repair, and graphic arts. (Computer programming is also an excellent field because social eccentricity is tolerated.) Autistics also need mentors to explain the ways of the world. I have helped many autistic adults by explaining to them that they think differently from other people. It makes it easier to figure out what and why things are going on when one learns that other people's actual thinking processes are different. Video cameras and tape recorders can be very useful in teaching social interactions. When I look at videotapes of some of my old lectures, I can see the things I did wrong, such as using odd voice patterns. Teaching a person with autism the social graces is like coaching an actor for a play. Every step has to be planned. This is one reason that Mr.Carlock did more for me than teach me science. He spent hours giving me encouragement when I became dejected by all the teasing by classmates. Mr. Carlock's science lab was a refuge from a world I did not understand.

When I became interested in something, I rode the subject to death. I would talk about the same thing over and over again. It was like playing a favorite song over and over on the stereo. Teenagers do this all the time, and nobody thinks that it is odd. But autism exaggerates normal behavior to a point that is beyond most people's capacity for understanding. For example, many people thought the way I perseverated on my door symbols was weird and tried to get me to get rid of them. It took someone like Mr. Carlock to help me channel such fixations.

College and Graduate School

Before I entered college, my mother informed the administration of my problems. The school was close to my old high school and I was still able to see Mr. Carlock on weekends. This was very important for my success. He provided needed support and encouragement while I adapted to life in college. I might not have been able to make it without him.

There were two kinds of college courses: easy ones, like biology, history, and English, and impossible ones, like math and French. Mr. Dion, the math teacher, spent hours with me after each class. Almost every day I went to his office and reviewed the entire day's lecture. I also had to spend hours with a tutor to get through French. For moral support there was Mrs. Eastbrook, the assistant dean's wife. She was another one of the unconventional people who helped me. She had wild hair and wore long johns under her skirt. When I got lonely or down in the dumps, I went over to her house and she gave me much-needed encouragement.

College was a confusing place, and I strove to use visual analogies to understand the rules of collegiate society. When I got into college, I made new analogies to augment the simple ideas that I had come up with in boarding school to stay out of trouble. There I had quickly learned which rules I really had to follow and which rules I could bend through careful observation and logic. I developed a simple classification system for rules, which I called «sins of the system.» A rule designated as a sin of the system was very important, and breaking it would result in severe loss of privileges or expulsion. Students got into serious trouble for smoking and having sex. If a student could be totally trusted not to engage in these two activities, she could break some of the minor rules without any consequences. I designated smoking and sex as sins of the system. Once the staff realized that I would not run off into the bushes and have sex I was never punished for going out in the woods without a staff member. I was never given special permission to go hiking by myself, but on the other hand, I learned that the staff would make no attempt to stop me. I figured out that the teachers and houseparents were much more concerned about smoking and sex, and I learned how to stay out of trouble.

For people with autism, rules are very important, because we concentrate intensely on how things are done. I always took the rules seriously and won the confidence of my teachers. People who trust me have always been a big help. But many people have difficulty deciphering how people with autism understand rules. Since I don't have any social intuition, I rely on pure logic, like an expert computer program, to guide my behavior. I categorize rules according to their logical importance. It is a complex algorithmic decision-making tree. There is a process of using my intellect and logical decision-making for every social decision. Emotion does not guide my decision; it is pure computing.

Learning a complex decision-making process is difficult. I had a strict moral upbringing, and I learned as a child that stealing, lying, and hurting other people were wrong. As I grew older I observed that it was all right to break certain rules but not others. I constructed a decision-making program for whether rules could be broken by classifying wrongdoing into three categories: «really bad,» «sins of the system,» and «illegal but not bad.» Rules classified as really bad must never be broken. Stealing, destroying property, and injuring other people are in this category, and they were easy to understand. The «illegal but not bad» rules can often be broken with little consequence. Examples would be slight speeding on the freeway and illegal parking. The «sins of the system» category covers rules that have very stiff penalties for seemingly illogical reasons. Using my system has helped me negotiate every new situation I enter.

My Aunt Breechen was another important mentor. She was always very tolerant and encouraged me to work with cattle. I fell in love with Arizona while visiting her ranch. My infatuation with the cattle chutes there also provided the motivation that started my career, and I returned there to go to graduate school.

I wanted to do my master's thesis in animal science on the behavior of cattle in feedlots in different types of cattle chutes, but my adviser at Arizona State University thought that cattle chutes were not an appropriate academic subject. Back in 1974, animal behavior research on farm livestock was a rarity. Once again, my fixation propelled me. I was going to do my survey of cattle behavior in cattle chutes even though the professor thought it was stupid. I then had to seek out a new adviser. Most of the professors in the Animal Science Department thought my ideas were crazy. Fortunately, I persevered and found two new professors, Dr. Foster Burton, chairman of the Construction Department, and Mike Nielson, from Industrial Design, who were interested. With them I figured out my survey methods. An idea that seemed crazy to conservative professors in animal science seemed perfectly reasonable to a construction man and a designer.

My master's thesis brought together all of my ideas about and fixations on the way things work. I wanted to determine the effect of different squeeze chute designs on the behavior of the animals, the incidence of injury, and the chutes' efficiency The variables I looked at were the breed of the cattle, the design of the squeeze chute, and the size of the cattle. I measured how often the cattle balked and refused to enter the squeeze chute, speed of handling, and things that could injure the animals, such as falling on slippery surfaces and head stanchions that could choke them. To survey the cattle, I stood next to the chute with a data sheet and recorded the behavior of each animal while it was branded and vaccinated.

I then had to punch the data into IBM punch cards for analysis on the mainframe computer in the Engineering Department. When I was at Arizona State University, there were no nice little desktop computers. Keypunching five thousand IBM cards was mind-numbing work, because the data for each animal had to be punched onto an individual card. I would arrive at the keypunch lab before the engineers got there at 6:00 p.m. and punch cards until my bladder gave out. If I left to go to the bathroom, an engineering student would grab my keypunch machine. I became an expert on the keypunch and the card sorter. When the sorter jammed, the engineering students would stand by helplessly while I unjammed it. Often I fixed the machine for them so I could get their cards sorted so I could get back to running mine. I always referred to the decks of cards as my cattle. Visualizing each card as an actual animal made it easier to understand how to sort them into different groups for statistical analysis. For example, I could sort the cards into size categories to see if cattle size affected efficiency. I used to call running the card sorter «sorting cattle.»

The results of my survey indicated that the design of the equipment affected its operation. Some types of squeeze chutes were more likely than others to injure the steers, and some breeds of cattle were more accident-prone in them than others. I also did a time-motion study to determine the most efficient speed for handling the animals. If a crew tried to go too fast, animals were more likely to become injured and vaccinations were given improperly. Twenty years ago I determined how much time was required to perform vaccinations and other procedures on cattle. These figures are still good today. It is simply impossible to handle the animals faster and do a decent job.

In some ways, I credit my autism for enabling me to understand cattle. After all, if I hadn't used the squeeze chute on myself, I might not have wondered how it affected cattle. I have been lucky, because my understanding of animals and visual thinking led me to a satisfying career in which my autistic traits don't impede my progress. But at numerous meetings around the country I have talked to many adults with autism who have advanced university degrees but no jobs. They thrive in the structured world of school, but they are unable to find work. Problems often occur at the outset. Often during interviews, people are turned off by our direct manner, odd speech patterns, and funny mannerisms.

Twenty years ago I did not realize how weird I seemed. One of my good friends told me that I was always hunched over, I wrung my hands, and I had an excessively loud, unmodulated voice. I've had to get everywhere I've gotten through the back door. Fortunately, I had enough money to live on while I started very slowly pursuing my career on a freelance basis. Once, at an American Society for Agricultural Engineers meeting, I was able to tell that I made a poor impression on two engineers, because they ignored me and refused to discuss engineering with me. They thought I was strange until I yanked out the drawing I had done of the dip vat at John Wayne's Red River feedlot. They said, «You drew that?»

People with autism can develop skills in fields that they can really excel in, such as computer programming, drafting, advertising art, cartooning, car mechanics, and small engine repair. Where they really need help is in selling themselves. In many cases, they have a better chance of getting hired if they are interviewed by other computer programmers or draftsmen instead of the personnel department. Likewise, showing a portfolio of work will help convince skeptical employers who are nervous about giving a job to an autistic person. I've known people who are engaged in satisfying jobs as varied as elevator repair, bike repair, computer programming, graphic arts, architectural drafting, and laboratory pathology. Most of these jobs use the visualization talents that many people with autism have. For instance, a good mechanic runs the engine in his mind to figure out what is wrong with it. People with autism who have savantlike memorization skills are good at cataloguing and reshelving books at the library. Piano tuning is another job they are good at, because many people with autism have perfect pitch.

I still remember taking that vital first step in establishing my credibility in the livestock industry. I knew if I could get an article published in the Arizona Farmer Ranchman, I could go on from there. While I was attending a rodeo, I walked up to the publisher of the magazine and asked him if he would be interested in an article on the design of squeeze chutes. He said he would be, and the following week I sent in an article entitled «The Great Headgate Controversy.» It discussed the pros and cons of different types of chutes. Several weeks later I received a call from the magazine; they wanted to take my picture at the stockyards. I just could not believe it. It was plain old nerve that got me my first job. That was in 1972. From then on I wrote for the magazine regularly while I was working on my master's degree.

Publishing articles led to a job of designing cattle chutes at Corral Industries, a large feedlot construction company. I was still living in my visual-symbol world, and I needed concrete representations of advancement in the cattle industry. I wore a green work uniform with cattle pins on the collar like a soldier's rank insignia. I started out as a private, with bronze cattle pins, and as I became recognized in the industry I awarded myself high-ranking silver or gold cattle pins. I was totally oblivious to the fact that other people regarded my uniform as ridiculous.

Emil Winnisky, the construction manager at Corral Industries, recognized my talents, and he helped me to dress and act more appropriately. He had his secretaries take me shopping for nicer clothes and teach me better grooming. Now I wear a more appropriate western shirt, but I still award myself an advancement in cattle rank and put two silver cattle pins on my collar.

At the time, I resented Emil's intrusion into my dress and grooming habits, but today I realize he did me a great favor. With much embarrassment I remember the day that he plunked a jar of Arid deodorant on my desk and told me that my pits stank. People with autism need to be counseled on clothing and grooming. Tight or scratchy clothes make paying attention to work impossible, and many cosmetics cause allergic reactions, so each person needs to find stylish, comfortable clothes that do not irritate overly sensitive skin and deodorant and other cosmetics free from perfume (I have severe allergic reactions to perfumes). Shaving is a problem for some autistic men because of tactile oversensitivity, which makes a razor feel like a power sander. Electric razors are often easier to tolerate.

While I was working at Corral Industries I would visit the Swift meat-packing plant once a week. There I met Tom Rohrer, the manager, who was to become one of my most important mentors in the work world. The main thing Tom did for me at first was to tolerate my presence, plain and simple. I was still talking too much, but he put up with me because I figured out clever ways to solve problems, such as using plastic milk hoses to pad the edges of gates and prevent bruises. Gradually the superintendent, Norb Goscowitz, and the foremen took an interest in me. Several times Norb told me that he was advising me the same way he would advise his own daughter.

A year later, I sold Swift the contract to build a new cattle ramp for Corral Industries. During construction of this project, I learned that being technically right was not always socially right. I criticized some sloppy welding in a very tactless way, and the workers got angry. Harley Winkleman, the plant engineer, gave me some good advice. He told me, «You must apologize to the workers before a small problem turns into a big cancer.» He made me go to the cafeteria and apologize, and he helped me learn to criticize more tactfully.

A year later, I got into more social hassles at the plant, and Tom defended me after I annoyed the president of Swift. I naively believed that every employee who worked there would put loyalty to the company first. The president was embarrassed when I wrote him a letter about mistakes on an equipment installation at another Swift plant. He did not appreciate my finding problems in his operation. From this I learned that loyalty to the best interests of the company was often not the primary motivator for another person's actions. I will never forget that when the going got really rough, Norb told me, «No matter what, you must always persevere.»

I quit the job at Corral Industries and continued to write for the Arizona Farmer Ranchman while I started my design business on a freelance basis. Freelancing enabled me to avoid many of the social problems that can occur at a regular job. It meant I could go in, design a project, and leave before I got into social difficulties. I still don't easily recognize subtle social cues for trouble, though I can tell a mile away if an animal is in trouble.

When a new manager took over the Arizona Farmer Ranchman, I did not realize that he thought I was weird and I was in danger of being fired. A fellow employee told me that he was turned off by me. My pal Susan saw the warning signs, and she helped me assemble a portfolio of all my articles. After the manager saw how many good articles I had written, he gave me a raise. This experience taught me that to sell my services to clients, I always had to have a portfolio of drawings and photos of completed projects. I learned to avoid social problems by limiting my discussions with clients to technical subjects and avoiding gossip about the social life of the people I worked with.

Employers who hire people with autism must be aware of their limitations. Autistic workers can be very focused on their jobs, and an employer who creates the right environment will often get superior performance from them. But they must be protected from social situations they are unable to handle. An autistic man who had successfully worked at an architectural firm for many years was fired when he was promoted to a position that involved customer contact. Another man lost his job at a lab after he got drunk with other employees. Employers need to educate their employees about autism so that an autistic person is not placed in a social situation that he or she can't handle.

But for every Mr. Carlock or Tom Rohrer, there will always be people who make life difficult. I remember the time when I drove into Scottsdale feed yard and walked up to the door that led into the cattle working area, and a man named Ron put his hand on the door and said that no girls were allowed. Back in the early seventies, no women worked in feedlots. Today many do, and many yards prefer women for handling and doctoring cattle, because they are gentler than men. But back then I didn't know which was my greater handicap, being a woman or having autism.

Attempting to get into a man's world was difficult enough. When I started designing facilities at meat plants, I had my car decorated with bull testicles and was constantly given «gross-out» tours. I had to get dressed in the men's bathroom when I worked at the dairy at Arizona State University. At one plant I was shown the blood pit on three separate occasions. During the third walk through the blood, I stamped my feet and splattered it all over the plant manager. He respected me after he saw that I knew how to operate the equipment. What people call sexual harassment today is nothing compared to what I went through.

Though he will never know it, when Ron blocked the door that led to the cattle working area, he instantly transformed a small, insignificant wood door in a fence into a special symbolic door in my pantheon of door symbols. Any event that actually involved a door being blocked seemed like part of a grand plan that God had in store for me. My visual-symbol world enabled me to keep on going. A blocked door had to be conquered. True to form, I was like a bull filled with pure determination. Nothing was going to stop me.

Update: Autism/Asperger's and Careers

I am very concerned about careers for people with high-functioning autism or Asperger's syndrome. Since Thinking in Pictures was written, more and more really gifted students are being labeled as having Asperger's. I am worried that some of these students will have their careers hindered by the label. The students I am most concerned about are the very bright students who are not being challenged at school and who misbehave because they are bored. In some schools these students are kept out of gifted and talented classes due to the Asperger's label.

I was a miserable, bored student and I did not study until I was mentored by Mr. Carlock, my high school science teacher. Over the years I have observed that the high-functioning autistic individuals who became successful have had two important factors in their lives: mentoring and the development of talents. The students who failed to have a good career often had no mentors and no development of their talents. I ended up in a career where I could use my visual skills to design cattle-handling facilities.

I have observed that there are many successful undiagnosed people with Asperger's working in many jobs. One man is a plant engineer who keeps a gigantic multi-million-dollar meatpacking plant running. In another plant, I met a head maintenance man who was clearly an undiagnosed Asperger. The man who fixed my copier had Asperger traits. I have also been interviewed by several journalists who were on the spectrum. Some college professors are also Asperger. The computer industry is filled with Asperger people. These are the happy people on the spectrum. One Asperger computer programmer told me that he was happy because he was with his own people.

Many of these successful people are my generation now in their forties and fifties. How were these people able to get and keep their jobs? All of us were raised in the '50s and '60s where it was standard to teach all children social skills. When I was a child,I was expected to sit through formal Sunday dinners and behave. Most of the time I did. Rudeness was not tolerated and I was taught to say please and thank you. Normal family activities provided structured opportunities to learn social skills. Sit-down meals and activities such as playing cards and board games like Chinese checkers taught turn-taking and patience.

Today many children lack this structure. Video games and time on the computer are spent solo. Many of my favorite childhood activities required participation with another child. I played with other children in board games, bike races, softball, and building tree houses. The other kids were fascinated with the kites and parachutes that I built.

Even the normal children today are growing up with more social problems. Later on they do not know how to behave at work. In the '90s, the Wall Street Journal started publishing more and more articles on how normal people should conduct themselves. The articles cover topics such as gossip, use of e-mail, and behavior at office parties. In the '70s and '80s these articles were rare, yet now there are one to three of them in most issues. In the '90s, MIT, the prestigious engineering school, started a course in social skills. Many engineering students have mild Asperger's. Social skills training is extremely important for people on the spectrum. I am not suggesting turning «Aspies» into social beings. People with autism and Asperger's are seldom interested in socializing for the sake of socializing. However, they need to have good manners and not be viewed as total slobs who wear the same dirty shirts for a week.

Multitasking Problems and Learning Driving

Multitasking is still very difficult for me. I would have a horrible time working as a cashier in a busy restaurant where I would have to make change and talk to people at the same time. Often I am asked how I can drive if I cannot multitask. I can drive because the operation of the car, steering and braking, has become a fully automatic skill. Research has shown that when a motor skill is first being learned, one has to consciously think about it. When the skill becomes fully learned, the frontal cortex is no longer activated and only the motor parts of the brain are turned on. I learned to drive on ranch roads in Arizona and I did not drive on the freeway or in heavy traffic for a full year. This avoided the multitasking issue because when I finally started driving in traffic, my frontal cortex was able to devote all its processor space to watching traffic. I recommend that people on the spectrum who are learning to drive spend up to a year driving on easy roads until steering, braking, and other car operations can be done without conscious thought.

Portfolios to Show Your Work

When I started freelance design work, people thought I was weird. I had to sell my work not my personality. People respected the accurate articles that I wrote for the Arizona Farmer Ranchman and they were impressed with my drawings and photos of completed cattle-handling facilities.

The successful people on the spectrum often get in the back door by showing a portfolio of their work to the right person. That often means avoiding the traditional front door with a job interview or the normal college admission process. One student circumvented the strict New York State testing requirements by sending a portfolio of her creative writing to an English professor. Her work was so good that he got her excused from the exams. I sold many jobs by sending portfolios of pictures and drawings to plant engineers. I contacted them after I read in a trade magazine that their plant was expanding.

Portfolios must be professionally and neatly presented. The person on the spectrum may need help choosing the best items to put in the portfolio. More information is in my careers book Developing Talents.

Update: Medication and Other Treatments

The computer field is full of people with Asperger's or Asperger's traits. Many of these individuals followed their parents into the field. When they were eight, their parents taught them computer programming. In other cases, the person started at an entry-level job and then worked his/her way up. This is how many of the Asperger's people who work in construction or in factories get good jobs. They start out as laborers and then they hang around the computers. The Wall Street Journal has many articles about people who started highly specialized niche businesses. Parents and teachers need to think creatively to find mentors and jobs. A mentor might be a retired electronics specialist who lives next door. Mentors are attracted to talent. Talents should be developed into skills that can turn into careers. Individuals on the spectrum need to learn that high standards are required to be successful but having perfect work is impossible. I remember almost quitting livestock equipment design when one of my early customers was not completely satisfied. My friend, Jim Uhl, a building contractor, explained to me that satisfying everybody is not an attainable goal. Explain to the individual that getting 90 to 95 percent of the answers right on a test is excellent, A-grade level work. In a job your work has to be at the 90 to 95 percent level. The concept of a percentage may be easier to understand with a bar graph or pie chart. The individual needs to understand that in some jobs 90 to 95 percent is an acceptable standard but in jobs such as computer programming the error rate has to be lower. However, absolute perfection is like absolute zero in physics: it is impossible to attain. High school and college students must get work experience and learn basic skills like punctuality. They also must learn to do what the boss tells them and to be polite. Working for a seamstress helped teach me work skills when I was a teenager. When I was in college, I had summer volunteer jobs at a school for autistic children and at a research lab. The best work experiences use the individual's talent. A volunteer job in a career related field may be better preparation for adult life than a paying job that is not career related.

Other Sources of Learning

High-functioning teenagers on the spectrum often get bullied in high school. I was kicked out of a large girls' high school after I threw a book at a girl who teased me. High school was the worst time in my life. Going away to a specialized boarding school where I could pursue interests such as horseback riding, roofing a barn, and electronics lab was the best thing that happened to me. It is a shame that some high schools no longer have classes in art, auto mechanics, wood working, drafting, or welding. Some students need to be taken out of the social obstacle course of high school to attend a university, community college, or technical school. Online classes are another option. There are now some special high school programs for Asperger's that help develop strengths. Valerie Paradiz, a mother of a child with Asperger's, started one of the first programs — the Aspie School in New York. I really like their slogan, «reengaging students in learning.» Their program emphasizes hands-on learning in areas such as movie making and graphic arts.

Exposing Children to Interesting Things

Students need to be exposed to many different interesting things in science, industry, and other fields so they learn that there is more to life than video games. Talents can be developed and nurtured when children have different experiences where they can use their special skills. Scientists have fabulous programs for visualizing organic chemistry molecules. At MIT, John Belcher developed a computer program that turns mathematical equations into beautiful abstract designs. Getting a student hooked on this could motivate a career in chemistry and physics. Other fascinating areas are distributed computing projects, statistics programs, and computer graphics. The journal Science has a section called «Net Watch.» It provides descriptions and links to interesting science Web sites. Reviews of the best sites are in the magazine or on www.sciencemag.org/netwatch. Large bookstores have a full selection of computer programming books that can be used to educate and motivate students. Commercially available simulation software such as Sim City and Spore can stimulate an interest in science, biology, or design. Children have to use their intellect to play these video games. Parents should bring trade journals and publications about their profession or business into the school library for students to read. Every industry from construction to banking has its own journal. The Wall Street Journal is another good resource. Old medical and scientific journals, computer industry magazines, and general interest publications such as National Geographic and Smithsonian could also be given to the library. Parents could also direct teachers to the Web sites of their professional organizations and interesting sites related to their careers. Parents could show a PowerPoint presentation with lots of pictures of what they do at work to get students interested. Trips to fun places like construction sites, TV stations, control rooms, factories, zoos, farms, backstage at theaters, a graphic design studio, or architectural computer-aided drafting departments can help get students motivated.

When I was a child I spent lots of time outdoors watching ants and exploring the woods. Kids today miss out on these experiences. I loved collecting shells on the beach and finding different weird rocks for my rock collection that lived on a shelf in our toolshed. Another fun activity I shared with other children was stick racing in the brook. We would drop sticks off the bridge into the brook and run to the other side to see which one came out first. Richard Louv's book Last Child in the Woods has many practical suggestions on how to get kids engaged with nature. A strip of woods or a vacant overgrown field can be used to get kids interested in biology, insects, conservation, ecology, and many other careers. There is a big world out there of interesting things and kids need to be exposed to them.

Autism/Asperger Advocacy

Many individuals with high-functioning autism or Asperger's feel that autism is a normal part of human diversity. Roy, a high-functioning autistic, was quoted in New Scientist, «I feel stabbed when it comes to curing or treating autism. It's like society does not need me.» There are numerous interest groups run by people on the autism/Asperger spectrum and many of them are upset about attempts to eliminate autism. A little bit of the autism trait provides advantages but too much creates a low-functioning individual who can not live independently. The paradox is that milder forms of autism and Asperger's are part of human diversity but severe autism is a great disability. There is no black-and-white dividing line between an eccentric brilliant scientist and Asperger's.

In an ideal world the scientist should find a method to prevent the most severe forms of autism but allow the milder forms to survive. After all, the really social people did not invent the first stone spear. It was probably invented by an Aspie who chipped away at rocks while the other people socialized around the camp-fire. Without autism traits we might still be living in caves.