Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism (17 page)

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.