Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Future exploitation of employees with ASD

I am not sure how I feel about this article I read. On the one hand it is great that HR departments are looking into hiring people on the spectrum. On the other hand I am not comfortable with my child being thought of as a gold nugget who will be expected to be a little robot who never asks for a day off or raise. I know I should be happy that adults with ASD are being hired, but I fear this way of thinking of people with ASD will lead to a number of them being exploited. I also fear these employees on the AS will not know when they are being taken advantage of.

Article here:
http://www.greatfallstribune.com/st...sider-hiring-autistic-employee/84340900/

I think it's pretty gross, TBH, for the same reasons as you.

The point is a good one--lots of high-ability people may not present as the best candidate in a job interview, because of social communication issues.

That super high autistic GPA is a stereotype, though. So is the part about being very productive, etc. Although I wish it were true.

Although the author writes on behalf of promoting positive employment opportunities for his grandson and others on the autism spectrum, the organization which he is affiliated with, Autism Speaks, is controversial as discussed on old threads.

Building bridges of understanding (rather than fueling controversy) may depend upon carefully considering what has been said rather than taking a point out of context and exaggerating or creating hyperbole. Anything taken to extreme... is extreme.

For example, this post states "expected to be a little robot". The article did not state this, this was generated by the poster reading between the lines.

This post also states "never asks for a day off or a raise" whereas the article stated "rarely" rather than "never". In my experience, raises are usually discussed annually in conjunction with a review which takes into account job level, length of service, performance, and attendance. Therefore asking for a raise seems to rarely occur, and may not be unique to this population. Similarly, days off are usually allocated by length of service and may be divided into several categories: vacation, personal days, sick time and/or medical leave, bereavement, maternity and/or family leave. Vacation days may typically need to be scheduled well in advance, whereas personal days are generally "paid out" if not taken. The other categories of time off may be protected by law, providing equal/equitable access for all. If the author is indicating good attendance, possibly he could have done that more directly and cited statistics. His wording has me wondering what meaning he is intending to convey... For example, I wonder whether persons on the ASD spectrum tend to have fewer children and therefore take less maternity/family leave???

This post refutes "super high autistic GPA" as being a stereotype. The article actually said "40 percent have average to above-average intellectual capabilities" and "my grandson has autism and currently holds a 3.6 grade-point average".

This post also argues that "the part about being very productive" is a stereotype. The article only mentioned "employees who pay attention to detail and/or follow procedures".

When a person argues against something which has not been said, this is called a "strawman" argument and is considered a flawed logic, or a logical fallacy.

Interested readers may wish to look to the referenced source documents, the "positive professional research" and published articles which the author mentioned as having been created by the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Nice post Indigo. Thank you. Very helpful and well worded.

Guilty (of "strawman") as charged--I didn't intend to argue, though.

I thought OP was asking for an emotional response to the article. I don't have time to dig into all the reasons one might have an intuitively negative response to something, but usually can figure out something logical if time permits.

To me, the gold mine/nugget analogy is offensive. I appreciate the author is trying to make a pro-disability statement, but it comes off (again, to me) as insensitive. YMMV.

As a purely emotional response, I'll offer this: The trend of changing from a supportive "personnel" department to a legal compliance function of "human resources" and then to "human capital" is rather offensive and seems to devalue human beings.

That is somewhat separate from the OP's article, but it sets the employment stage on which this play takes place.

Thank you!

Ditto, but Indigo did help me look at a few things from a differant angle.

Has anyone read 'The speed of dark' by Elizabeth Moon?

Have not read it, but will now that I know about it.
Thank you.

Ditto... Have not read it but I will now that I know about it.

Looking it up online and reading a brief description, it brought to mind a decades-old book, Flowers for Algernon, in which several characters were based on the author's observed experiences of individuals with whom he was acquainted.

On my To Read list, also!

Have any of you read The Rosie Project? I adore that book. It's a decidedly positive angle on ASD (IMHO). It's also a smart rom-com, very clever.

Has anyone read _The Prodigy's Cousin_? (Ruthsatz and Stephens)I am about halfway through it. It's a collection of largely-anecdotal evidence regarding the presumed-genetic links between child prodigy and child autism. Some of the stories in the book describe situations much like the family I grew up in (allowing for differences between that era and the current one.) Although generally a globally-gifted PG, I had prodigy characteristics and my little brother had autistic behaviors (Asperger's, we know now), while my sister was a very bright and social NT. This set up a kind of family dynamic that I see echoed in some of the stories in the book.

The book is not really patronizing, even though there is a lot of ooh-ing and ah-ing language over prodigy characteristics and implicit judgment of the undesirability of some milder autistic behaviors that are simply more weird (by NT standards) than they are problematic. Both of these sets of characteristics are stuff that in my family we were taught to deny and hide, as often as not. The families in the book don't deny or hide them, or they come to stop doing so. That's what I've really found interesting in reading their stories. It's like alternate history to me.

Alcyone- thank you for the recommend. On To Read list! Very interested in fiction, memoir, etc. with these themes.

I watched a TED talk by an author with an autistic son, who wrote The Boy Who Fell to Earth. Kathy Lette. The reviews indicate it's maybe not a great work of literature, but worth a read for a feeling of community . Also, it sounds entertaining. So adding that one to the list, for light summer poolside purposes.