For Some With Autism, Jobs to Match Their Talents

[n2doc]

Steen B. Iversen tests mobile phones for the Danish telecommunications firm TDC. Before landing his job two and a half years ago, Iversen, 50, who has been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, spent more than 12 years looking for work. “It’s always been somewhat traumatizing,” he said. “I have had jobs, but I always got fired. People would laugh about me behind my back and laugh at me to my face. Those problems have more or less been a problem for me from childhood.”

In the working world, Iversen said, his biggest problem was communication. “Most of the time it simply was that people didn’t understand me and I didn’t understand them,” he said.

Iversen works for a remarkable Danish company, Specialisterne (“The Specialists”), that is improving the futures of many families by opening up job opportunities for people with Asperger’s Syndrome and high-functioning autism who have historically found themselves excluded from employment, largely because they don’t fit in with workplace norms.

Specialisterne was founded by Thorkil Sonne. Eleven years ago, Sonne was a successful executive at TDC when his youngest child, Lars, then 3, was diagnosed with autism. “I had the perfect career and the perfect family,” he recalled. “It was so shocking to realize that one of our family members had a lifelong disability. As parents we wanted to make the best possible future for all of our children, not just the two who were non-disabled. So we had to come up with a new plan for our family’s future.”

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http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/putting-the-gifts-of-the-autistic-to-work/

[OneGrassRoot]

1. Excellent. Thank you so much. K&R n/t

[Deep13]

2. marking for future reference. nt

[Odin2005]

3. Meanwhile, here in the US, us autistics are called worthless parasites.

[Sal Minella]

4. Self-diagnosed low-order Asperger's here (intolerance to high-pitched

noises, sensitive skin, total lack of ability to interpret subtle facial cues and social interactions, etc.) --

I finally found proofreading and line-editing manuscripts to be my ideal employment -- no inscrutable, confusing human elements, just the structured flow of language on the page. I was lousy at any job that required face to face communication/understanding but I am unbeatable as a proofreader.

[SheilaT]

5. My 28 year old son with Asperger's

has just landed a CAD job. He got his degree last year, and couldn't seem to get hired in the field, so he went to work in the CAD lab at the community college where he got the degree. Once the school year ended and he had no more hours to work, he started again on the job search, and pretty quickly got this job.

In his case, he's also suddenly matured in a way that makes him a little more "normal", although he still has pretty classic Asperger's. But I've noticed the past few months when talking to him on the phone (we live 800 miles from each other) he's sounding a whole lot more focussed and present in a way I've never experienced from him.

This is just a six month contract, it's entry level, but I think it's all going to work out very well in the long run. He's in a field that has lots of people like him, which helps.

[mzteris]

6. maybe this line

will get through to those who don't care about others:

"for every dollar the government spends on vocational rehabilitation for people with disabilities the Social Security Administration saves $7."