Tech Fields A Haven For Some

Systems-Oriented Skills Of High-Functioning Autistics, Asperger's, Can Be A Good Fit

(WebMD) 

That means people with Asperger's and high-functioning autism often have great talents for creating and analyzing mechanical systems, such as engines, or abstract systems, like mathematics and computer programs. Baron-Cohen recently surveyed undergrads at Cambridge and found significantly more math majors diagnosed with autism compared with students majoring in other disciplines, such as medicine, law, and social science. These are all brainy subjects, but mathematics is best suited to a systemizing mind.
Baron-Cohen's research also found that Cambridge students pursuing math, physics, and engineering were more likely to have autistic family members compared with students of literature.

Spike In Autism Cases

Autism used to be considered a rare disorder, but current estimates place the number of children with autism spectrum disorders somewhere between one in 500 and one in 166. There has been a spike in autism rates over the past two decades, but the cause is unknown and very controversial. Baron-Cohen is now investigating whether what he terms "assortative mating" may play some role in it.

He proposes that people who may carry genes for autism can have strong systemizing traits, which leads them to pursue careers in science and technology, where they meet like-minded mates and have children who turn out to be autistic. To test this idea, he is studying places like California. The California state health department reported in 2003 that autism cases doubled between 1998 and 2002, which coincides with the Internet technology boom.


Jobs And Autism

No one has yet taken a head count of people with high-functioning autism or Asperger's among the ranks of engineers, physicists, and computer programmers. Popular belief holds that places like NASA and Silicon Valley are havens for them.

To Nancy Minshew, M.D., professor of psychiatry and neurology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, that's beside the point. Far too many, she says, are not employed at all. Only about one-third have jobs, and many of them are underemployed.

One of the best-known Asperger's success stories is that of Temple Grandin, who carved out a unique career designing systems for managing livestock and who has written books about her experience. "If she had to go through human resources, she'd be a failure," Minshew tells WebMD. "For some reason, we think that they have to pass socially-based interviews in order to do a technological job. Most of the people with Asperger's and autism are going to fail and never get a job."

Minshew says there are countless jobs — not just in technology — that people with autism could do better than anyone else. "A man in construction said, 'I need a tile layer that will lay tile straight,' and I said, 'I'll give you somebody that'll give you a new definition of straight.'"

Sources: Simon Baron-Cohen, Ph.D., professor of psychology, director, Autism Research Centre, University of Cambridge, England. Eric Hollander, M.D., director, Seaver and New York Autism Center of Excellence, Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Nancy Minshew, M.D., professor of psychiatry and neurology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. CDC web site: "How common are Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)?" California Department of Developmental Services web site: "Autism Spectrum Disorders, Changes in the California Caseload, An Update: 1998 Through 2002." Baron-Cohen, S. Autism, 1998; Vol. 2: pp 296-301. Howlin, P. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, February 2004; Vol. 45: pp 212–229. Baron-Cohen, S. Archives of Disease in Childhood, January 2006; Vol. 91: pp 2-5. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, June 2005. Cambridge Encyclopedia of Child Development; "Autism," Cambridge University Press, 2005.