Autism at Easter – good news week

by Benison O'Reilly on Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

It’s the Easter holidays and in our household that means one thing—well two things, actually, Easter eggs and the Sydney Royal Easter Show.  The first is easy enough to accommodate, but the second…hmm.

If any of you have read the Australian Autism Handbook, you’ll know that Joe, despite having a few sensory issues, loves the Easter Show—the whole, noisy, smelly, crowded deal.  As a result we have to go every year, rain or shine.

In a development of sorts he asked to take a friend from school this year.  I regarded this as a mixed blessing. It’s wonderful that the desire for friendship is there, but he lacks the social skills—the sharing, the reciprocal conversation—to really connect in a friend-like way. In the end I was unable to oblige anyway: all the kids we asked were either away or sick or otherwise engaged that day. Joe took the news badly. He cried in fact, and when my little boy is sad I am doubly so.

I spoke to a few people about this, and the consensus is that his desire for friendship is ultimately a good thing. It is just my job to keep working with him, so eventually he does develop the skills to maintain a real connection with his peers. It will probably be based around IT and computer games, and with other kids on the spectrum, but that’s okay.

When we made it to the show he‘d gotten over his disappointment, and was happy with his two show bags and four rides. It was a joy to witness his excited smile as he flashed by me on the roller coaster. It was less a joy to join him on a ride called the ‘Wild Raft’, which left me feeling nauseous for hours.

The whole family is off to Hong Kong tomorrow for a week. I’ve decided Joe’s dad can take his son to Disneyland whilst I go shopping.

Anyway, as we’re in holiday mode I’m not keen on the idea of dissecting any science, so I’m just going to mention a good news story which appeared in the media this week.  It’s about Specilisterne, a Danish software company, where every worker on the payroll has an ASD.

It was founded by a gentleman called Thorkill Sonne, who is the father of a boy with autism. Sonne was a keynote speaker at the Asia Pacific Autism Conference held in Sydney last August. Unfortunately I was manning the AAH stand and didn’t get a chance to hear him speak then, so I was very interested in this report from (American) ABC News.

According to the report Sonne:

‘…means to change the nature of the way society views disability. Sonne believes that workers with high-functioning autism have different brain wiring that gives them an edge’.

He lists good memory, a strong attention to detail, persistence and ability to follow instructions as skills that are important in software testing. It’s refreshing for a change to see someone looking at autistic traits as strengths, rather than disabilities.

As I’ve mentioned before, Joe is a mini-IT guru in the making and if more companies do decide to follow Specilisterne’s lead his future employment opportunities could be bright. Maybe he’ll even pick up a few friends along the way, too.

Read more at: www.nydailynews.com/money/2010/04/02/2010-04-02_thriving_danish_software_company_specilisterne_only_hires_people_with_autism__an.html

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