Developing Talents E-Book

Temple Grandin

• Herausgeber: Future Horizons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 303

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Who knows better about developing the talents of those with autism than Temple Grandin? This updated and expanded third edition of Developing Talents considers the continuing dismal employment statistics for individuals with autism. The authors take an in-depth look at entrepreneurship and many other options.

Using real-life examples, Grandin and Duffy note that many of the unique characteristics of individuals on the autism spectrum lend themselves well to entrepreneurial ventures. The book explores many unnoticed aspects of vocational rehabilitation programs that provide job training and placement for people with disabilities, as well as Social Security Administration programs that offer vocational assistance. Employment figures and prospects have been updated, and new jobs have been added that are well suited for those on the spectrum.

Leseprobe

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Some of the Most Brilliant Minds Are Autistic

Autism Spectrum Disorders and Their Effect in the Workplace

chapter 2

Easing into the Workplace

chapter 3

Rules for Success on the Job

chapter 4

Finding a Vocation You Love

chapter 5

Searching for an Ideal Job

chapter 6

Do WhatYou Do Best

chapter 7

Best Jobs for Individuals on the Autism Spectrum

chapter 8

Entrepreneurship

chapter 9

Advice from Those Who Have Gone Before

References and Further Reading

Appendix

Temple Grandin

Kate Duffy

Foreword

A relatively small proportion of adults with autism achieve long-term employment appropriate to their intellectual ability and qualifications. This is a remarkable waste of potential talent. The American workforce needs the benefit of the qualities of these individuals.

Temple Grandin is a pioneer in terms of her ability to achieve highly successful employment, capitalizing on the very qualities associated with autism spectrum disorders. This book is somewhat like Temple herself: practical, knowledgeable, and positive. Together with Kate Duffy, a specialist in career planning, she has written a book that will be of great value to parents, teachers, and employment agencies, as well as adults with autism.

The book provides advice and illustrations from Temple’s own experiences as well as the advice of other autistic people who have also achieved lucrative and enjoyable careers. While the benefits in income and independence from successful employment are obvious, I would add that there is another important benefit. As a clinician, I have noted that adults with autism tend to define themselves by their employment rather than their social network. In other words, their self-esteem is based on the quality of their work. Not surprisingly, therefore, one of the causes of depression in this population is a lack of successful and enjoyable employment. This book has the potential to significantly improve the quality of life of people with autism, their families, and society.

— Professor Tony Attwood

Dear Parents, Teachers and Counselorsfrom Temple Grandin and Kate Duffy

Thank you for reading this third edition of Developing Talents. When we started working on the first edition in 2002, we were frustrated and concerned by the large number of people on the autism spectrum who either didn’t have a job or held one that was much beneath their abilities or talents. Work is so important to the human experience in our culture, and here were great numbers of people who would never know the joy of completing a project, contributing financially to their families, or maybe even living on their own someday.

This was dismal news.

That is why we wrote the first and second editions of what has become a widely used and read resource: to help others on the spectrum learn to find jobs and careers where they could shine.

It is now February 2024 and the revised edition of Developing Talents is about to go to the printer. We’re afraid our concern about high school and college graduates with autism not getting and keeping good jobs still rings true. This is most often due to a lack of career-relevant job experiences before they graduate.

What happened? It is not that there aren’t jobs that these graduates would be good at. Many jobs would be a perfect fit for the analytical, detail-oriented, and precise talents of young people on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum. This book lists quite a few in Chapters 6 and 7. In Denmark, Thorkil Sonne has even made a case that his 75 employees with autism have given his software testing firm a competitive advantage. Who, after all, is more passionate about detail and precision than someone on the spectrum? Sonne, the father of a child on the spectrum, purposely created Specialisterne (www.specialisterne.com) as a workplace haven of sorts for those with Asperger’s, with its well-defined expectations, organized office space, and less stressful environment.

Specialisterne’s clients have included corporate giants Microsoft and Oracle, and before new employees can even think about getting close to one of their software programs, they have to know what is expected of them, technically and socially. Employees have to keep their cool and work hard to have an interesting and fulfilling job. In other words, Sonne’s employees have to pay attention to what the company needs and wants from them in order to be successful. Not a bad trade-off; people have been doing it for years. But there seem to be an awful lot of young people who haven’t learned about that trade-off, who aren’t particularly interested in what other people need or want—even employers.

Work Skills Are Different Than Academic Skills

I have spent over 50 years designing equipment for the livestock industry and have been a university professor for 34 years. I had no speech until age four, and I want to thank my mother and the many teachers and mentors who worked with me. Over the years, I have collaborated with many successful people who probably had undiagnosed autism. Grandparents frequently come up to me at conferences and tell me that they discovered they were autistic after the kids got diagnosed. They were able to keep good jobs because they learned work skills when they were young.

Work skills and academic skills are totally different. Too many autistic teens and young adults have also not learned life skills, such as shopping, budgeting, and personal hygiene. There is often a tendency for parents to overprotect and do too many tasks for their child. But it is never too late for an autistic adult to learn work skills. The first step is learning how to do a task on a schedule for somebody OUTSIDE the family. Some possible tasks could be walking the neighbor’s dog or helping an elderly neighbor. I met an autistic teen who was so proud that she was the “coffee lady” at her church. She was successfully doing a task for people outside her family.

In my livestock-equipment design work, I have worked with many talented metal workers, designers, and welders. During their careers, they have invented and patented complex mechanical equipment. About 20 percent of them were either undiagnosed autistic, were dyslexic, or had ADHD. They had taken shop classes in high school, and some of them had started at entry-level jobs. They gradually worked their way up because they were skilled at many things. This way of getting a good job still works today. Recently, I talked to two people who got great jobs fixing industrial equipment. They started as laborers, and they learned to repair many types of machines on the job.

Today, there is a huge need for high-level skilled trades jobs. The good thing about these jobs is that they will not be replaced by artificial intelligence (AI). An AI program is not going to install the electrical wiring in your house or repair an elevator. Recently, I visited a program in Denver that teaches auto mechanics to young autistic adults. They have been very successful getting their trainees hired by auto dealers. They have been successful because they taught BOTH mechanical and life skills. Along with the mechanics, the students learned how to be on time and have good personal hygiene. When they get a job at an auto dealer, they also had a job coach for several months. The mechanics classes were kept small with six students.

Introduce Change Slowly

We know that people on the spectrum tend to resist change and many lack the motivation to try new things. In my own case, as a teenager I didn’t want to spend the summer at my aunt’s ranch out west. One of the reasons was that they had no TV at the ranch. Mother insisted that I go but told me that if I hated it, I could come home after two weeks.

I ended up staying all summer! I loved the ranch, and my favorite TV show soon became less important. In fact, staying at the ranch started my cattle chute obsession, which formed the starting point for my career. But first, I had to move from my obsession of talking about cattle chutes to designing cattle facilities. Sometimes parents and teachers have to push an individual on the spectrum to try new things.

But expect that pushing to bear fruit slowly. My mother told me for two months that I would be spending that summer on my aunt’s ranch. In a way I was prepared to go, even though I didn’t like the idea. Here are some other ways for young people on the spectrum to prepare for a life of their own:

Go slowly, but go in the direction that interests you by holding down a job or an internship, preferably in a field in which you’re interested in working. The three Aspies who tell their stories in Chapter 9 all had jobs when they were in high school. They gained work experience by delivering newspapers, mowing lawns, selling greeting cards, and working in a store and on a farm.Study other people’s needs as a way to learn about the world. In high school and college, I had a sign-painting business, and even though I couldn’t have cared less about beauty salons, I still had to pay attention to what the owner wanted on her sign. I also built sets for the high school plays, and even though I really wanted to build cow chutes or barns, I couldn’t. That’s not what the director needed.In college, take a lighter load of classes and continue to get work experience. At work you have to learn how to get along with others and keep your cool when you feel like blowing your stack. If you make jokes about the fat lady in the elevator, you’ll be fired. Or if you have a meltdown because the break room offered the wrong kind of cookies that day, you’ll also be fired. Both of these, unfortunately, are true stories.Introduce change slowly in your life. Remember that the executive function part of the autistic brain doesn’t work so well, so expect to feel confused some of the time. It is best to avoid multitasking, and if you have trouble organizing your day, make a written schedule of your activities.Lighten up. Expect that you’ll be upset and perturbed part of the day and design your schedule around those times. Do more complex tasks at times of the day when you feel the most energetic. Laugh deeply and often and join the world as much as you can. After all, you are a member of the human race, and this is your home.

Young people on the autism spectrum have talents and have a lot to contribute to the world. In this third edition of Developing Talents, we have added a chapter (Chapter 8) on a growing area of the U.S. economy: entrepreneurship. Many of the unique characteristics of individuals on the autism spectrum lend themselves well to taking advantage of, and thriving on, the wide-open possibilities of this field.

During my 35-year career in the livestock industry, I have worked with successful colleagues who are on the Asperger/autism spectrum. These include designers, computer programmers, engineers, statisticians, building contractors, radio and print journalists, animal trainers, and professors. Most of these people were never diagnosed. To inspire young people on the spectrum to work hard and get into good careers, we have added a new chapter (Chapter 9), in which three successful autistic people offer advice.

In addition, Chapter 4 presents information about vocational rehabilitation programs that provide job training and placement for people with disabilities as well as information about Social Security Administration programs that provide vocational assistance. Chapter 4 also includes a profile of a mother of a child on the spectrum who has helped her son achieve independence through a blend of persistence, creativity, and ongoing advocacy. Finally, we have listed new jobs that are particularly well-suited for those on the spectrum.

The world is an interesting place, and individuals on the autism spectrum miss out on a lot if they ignore it. They will miss out even more if they can’t figure out their fellow human beings’ needs. Please help them pay attention; they’ll have a much better life as a result.

Tips for Keeping Jobs

For many years, I have observed certain patterns occurring over time that have caused a loss of jobs. Some simple accommodations would prevent many jobs from being lost:

Explaining a task with long strings of verbal instruction does not work. This is due to poor working memory. Any task that requires a sequence of steps should be presented in a written “pilot’s checklist” format. The steps for performing the task should be presented on a list of bullet points. There was a sad case of an electrician apprentice who lost his job because he installed the wrong switches and light fixture. He was not able to remember a long list of verbal instructions. He would probably still have his job if he had been given a written list. Avoid jobs with rapid multitasking such as a busy food takeout window. There are some accommodations that will have to be made for sensory issues. There is a whole chapter in the book about this. Vague instructions from the boss do not work. Telling an employee that they are not a team player is too vague. The autistic employee needs to be taken to a private office and directly instructed on how to behave. For example, calling Jim a jerk at the project meeting was not acceptable and they will have to apologize. A danger area for many autistic employees is when they get a new boss. I almost lost an early job writing for a livestock magazine when I got a new boss. I was able to save my job by showing the new boss a portfolio of my articles. He thought I was weird, but he formed a different opinion after he saw some of my good work. I learned to sell my skills to people by showing a portfolio of my work.

— Temple Grandin

Hello, readers.

Thank you for joining us for this third edition of Developing Talents. It’s been fifteen years since we released the last edition, and in that time there have been some positive changes in the employment landscape for individuals on the autism spectrum. Five worth paying attention to are below:

A shift in how government agencies view employment for people with disabilities—Nationwide, more states are involved in the Employment First initiative, a national movement to ensure people with disabilities, no matter how severe, are able to participate in “competitive integrated employment” and community life. Simply put, employment in the community is a primary goal and is to be supported by the state agencies providing vocational services to people with disabilities. Increased access to inclusive academic/vocational education after high school—More than 300 universities and colleges now offer inclusive higher-education programs to students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), including autism. These programs provide students with academic, vocational, and independent living experiences that help students work towards their personal and vocational goals. Each institution structures its program differently, but all have the mission of helping their students transition more seamlessly to the workforce and their community. The Institute for Community Inclusion, UMass Boston provides technical assistance, evaluation, and research services to inclusive education programs through its national center, Think College, where you can find a listing of colleges and universities offering inclusive education. Corporations partnering with disability-inclusion experts—More corporations are diversifying their workforce by partnering with disability-inclusion experts such as James Emmett and Company to create systems for recruiting, hiring, training, and retaining employees with autism and other disabilities. Emmett, who has a disability and three daughters with disabilities, has worked closely with companies such as Walgreens, Office Max/Depot, PepsiCo, and others to increase their capacity for hiring employees with disabilities.Job and career mapping tools for all—Thanks to organizations such as the DeBruce Foundation, students and community members, with and without disabilities, are discovering and matching their talents, interests, and skills to jobs where they can shine. DeBruce’s Agile Work Profiler is free and aims to help individuals of all ages learn how their strengths can add value to the workforce, even in entry-level jobs. The Foundation’s goal is to increase career pathways and job seekers’ ability to take more control of their economic lives. DeBruce partners with school districts, higher education institutions, community organizations, government agencies and more to train their teachers and staff to use the Agile Work Profiler with students and clients they serve. Planning and organizing tools to help navigate systems—Finally, individuals with disabilities, parents, special education teachers, disability service coordinators, counselors and others across the country have used the Charting the LifeCourse planning tools to organize their vision and goals as well as navigate and advocate for supports. LifeCourse is a powerful planning tool used by many agencies and families to ensure their clients or family members live a life that is important to them.

Given these positives, why then is the employment rate still so low for people with disabilities, 21.3 percent in 2022, including autism (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)? The answer is pretty straightforward: Underfunded and often understaffed, the employment system for people with disabilities is broken, creating a kind of limbo for adults with autism and their families.

Mine has been one of those families for the past several years, as my older son has gone through severe, debilitating bouts of anxiety, not uncommon for adults with autism. Our family has always believed that “everyone works,” no matter the disability or challenge. My son has worked off and on since he was 17, needing few supports, especially in those jobs that were a good fit for his talents and interests.

As he has aged, though, his anxieties have grown, and his autistic obsessions intensified. Finding and keeping a job has proven to be difficult. Last year, an employment specialist referred him away from Vocational Rehabilitation services to the more intensive supports of a state Medicaid Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) employment services program. It took a year to get through the paperwork and “wait list,” an eternity for my son and the rest of us.

My son is not alone in needing this extra help, according to Drexel University autism researchers Anne Roux and Lindsay Shea. Their September 2023 opinion piece in Scientific American estimates “that half of autistic individuals (adults) in the U.S., or about 2.7 million people, require some services to find and keep a job. Poverty rates are higher than average among families with autistic individuals, so many autistic people must rely on public employment services. Unfortunately, most of these individuals will never receive them.”

This is a terrible loss. Lives on hold, talents wasted, opportunities missed. We spend most of our lives as adults, Roux and Shea argue, so why not mandate developmental-disability services throughout adulthood and invest more in in-home and community-based care? The numbers they cite make their case:

Only 1.1 percent of adults with autism who likely needed job supports received public employment services in 2016 through Medicaid or state vocational rehabilitation programsForty-two percent of autistic youth don’t have jobs in their early 20sFewer than 1 in 5 adults with autism who receive public employment services have a paid job in the community

What can change this dismal picture is for those of us in the autism community, self-advocates, and supporters alike, to join together to lobby for increased funding and more accountability on how those dollars serve our communities. Families have a long history of organizing to create, and lobby for, services for their children with disabilities. The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), Autism Delaware Adult Services, The Mission Project, The Arc Jacksonville Village, and Casa Familia are several examples.

You’ll find that much of our career advice in this third edition has stayed the same over the years. We still advocate for youth and adults with autism to select jobs reflecting their interests and talents. Everybody does

That is partly true because autism brains tend to be specialized, good at some things and not so good at others. We want readers on the spectrum to pay close attention to how they take in and process information, their thinking styles, so to speak. In general, there are three different specialized brains: visual, or thinking in pictures; music, higher math or pattern thinking; and verbal lists and language translator. Once again, we have a list of jobs that people with these different brain or processing styles would do well at.

— Kate Duffy

Sources

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Employment–population ratio for people with a disability increases to 21.3 percent in 2022 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2023/employment-population-ratio-for-people-with-a-disability-increases-to-21-3-percent-in-2022.htm(visited December 25, 2023).

Roux, Anne, and Lindsay Shea. “A Broken Employment System Leaves Autistic Adults Stranded.” Scientific American: Sept 13, 2023. www.scientificamerican.com accessed 12.25.2023.

IntroductionSome of the Most Brilliant Minds Are Autistic

Whenever I attend autism conferences, I am struck by how many people on the fully verbal end of the autism spectrum are either unemployed or underemployed. This really bothers me because working is such an important part of my life. Without work, no matter how big or small the job, life would become small and unsatisfying for me. With work, we discover we can give back to our family and community that have given so much to us.

Yet, I realize that the idea that people with autism spectrum disorders can work in a meaningful job sounds unrealistic to many. But as someone with autism who has run a freelance livestock equipment design business and held down a part-time college professor job for more than three decades, I know it can be done, and, I believe, should be done. For one, we do not want our autism to be the whole of our lives. That is neither healthy nor wise. I think that people who are able should get out in the community and get jobs.

Just as important, society loses out if individuals with autism spectrum disorders are not involved in the world of work or make other kinds of contributions to society.

Some of our world’s finest minds, inventions, art, and ideas belong to people with autistic traits (Fitzgerald & O’Brien, 2007). Albert Einstein and Vincent Van Gogh, for example, both had developmental abnormalities during early childhood, as explored in my earlier book Thinking in Pictures (2006). In my new book Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions, I discuss individuals who have more recently been identified as either autistic or having autistic traits. Some of them are Elon Musk, Greta Thurnberg, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg. There is additional information about Elon Musk in Vance (2015) and Isaacson (2023).

Over the years, the criteria for diagnosing autism have changed. In the 1980’s, a child had to have BOTH speech delay and symptoms such as, being society isolated and repetitive behavior, to be diagnosed with autism. In 1994, Asperger’s Syndrome was added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual that was published by the American Psychiatric Association. It is basically socially awkward with no obvious speech delay. In 2013 (DSM-5, 2022) the Asperger diagnosis was removed and the individuals with no speech delay were merged with the individuals with either speech delay or no speech. This created a huge autism spectrum that ranged from non-speaking individuals with intellectual disability, to Einsteins. These individuals are some non-speaking individuals who have learned to type independently and have normal intelligence.

These kids are often the really bright science “nerds.” Einstein, for one, did not associate with his peers at school. He had tremendous single-mindedness in solving problems—but only those that interested him!

Oddly enough, it may have been that very social backwardness that led Einstein to develop his theory of relativity. After all, how many “normal” adults spend a lot of time thinking about the problems of space and time? As an adult, Einstein continued to demonstrate the traits of someone with mild autism. He cared little for social niceties, wore disheveled clothes, and kept his hair long and unruly. His students and colleagues reported that his lectures were scattered and sometimes incomprehensible. Often he would stop in the middle of writing a theorem on the board, seem to go into a trance, and then emerge from it a few minutes later only to write a new hypothesis (Clark, 1971; Fitzgerald & O’Brien, 2007).

Similarly, biographers describe artist Vincent Van Gogh as an odd, aloof child who threw many tantrums and preferred spending time alone. He was ill-groomed and blunt and spoke with tension and a nervous rasp in his voice, quite common for adults with autistic tendencies. He was also terribly self-absorbed when he spoke with others and cared little about his listeners’ interest or comfort, according to Grant (1968).

Often, individuals on the autism spectrum do not do well in school. I had a horrible time graduating from high school myself. Many renowned scientists, artists, and writers also had difficulties in school. For example, Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics, could not pass the exam to get a high school teaching license. He conducted his experiments in the corner of a monastery garden with pea plants. When he presented the results of his experiments at his thesis defense, he failed to gethis degree.

Nobody paid any attention to his ideas, but thankfully 120 copies of his paper survived and were recognized as the works of genius that they are after his death. Even though sometimes subject to debate, today, Mendel’s principles are taught in every high school science class (Fitzgerald & O’Brien, 2007; Kevin, 1967).

Philosopher LudwigWittgenstein probably had autism, suggests neurologist Oliver Sacks (1995). He did not talk until he was four years old and was considered a dullard with no talent. Other members of his family presumably suffered from depression, quite common among individuals with autism spectrum disorders. Indeed, both of his brothers committed suicide. Among his talents, Wittgenstein had strong mechanical abilities, building a sewing machine at the age of ten. He used formal language, even with his peers, who teased him about his odd speech and mannerisms. We now know that overly formal speech is common in individuals on the autism spectrum.

As these examples illustrate, if we leave out certain people from society’s work, we all lose out. Other famous people who were probably on the autism spectrum include Thomas Jefferson, Carl Sagan, and Amadeus Mozart (Ledgin, 2001).

For those on the autism spectrum, finding a satisfying job also provides social opportunities through shared interests. Some of the most satisfying experiences in my life have been interacting with engineers and the people I worked with to build the facilities I had designed. It was one “techie” communicating with another “techie.”

Productive Work Makes Life Satisfying

Work is more than just a livelihood or paycheck; it is the key to a satisfying and productive life. For many on the autism spectrum, it is the glue that keeps our lives together in an otherwise frustrating and sometimes confusing world. Certainly, my life would not be worth living if I did not have intellectually satisfying work.

On a related note, I remember reading a few years ago about free Linux software. People in the business world had difficulty comprehending why the programmers gave their work away. But it’s not a mystery to me why they would download their programs, their “ideas,” into the great and evolving computer operating system.

How wonderful to know your thoughts and work live on as part of the “genetic code” of a computer program. The Linux people are putting themselves into the program, contributing their “intellectual DNA” to the forever cyberspace. As the program evolves, the code they wrote will remain buried deep within it, becoming part of the great evolution of computer science. These programmers contribute to this effort because it makes their livesmore meaningful.

I realize that many people on the autism spectrum, especially those with more severe autism, will not go to college, or hold down a job that requires a higher education degree. Many jobs do not require a four-year college degree, but the best-paying jobs do require some formal education or training after high school. The most important thing jobs require is for the job holder to be willing to work and have a good attitude at work. In other words, be willing to learn new skills, get along with coworkers, and do the best job you can. Many people with autism do well in college, for example, but have problems keeping a job upon graduation. This book will provide information that will help you develop your talents and get and keep a good job.

Even people on the non-speaking end of the autism spectrum can work if they are coached along the way and eased into the workplace. In a way, I am my work, which provides a much-needed framework for my life. Because of my work as a livestock facilities designer and an animal science professor, I have regular and frequent contact with other people. We discuss projects, plan programs, and brainstorm ideas. Yet, I spend most of my weekend time alone, drawing and reading. If it weren’t for my job, I’m afraid I would spend even more of my time secluded, isolated from the world I now navigate with some ease. This ease was hard-won and only came because of the many interventions and support I received over the years. These form the basis for the ideas and suggestions inthis book.

As I look back, my mother made sure I received speech therapy, a good preschool education, and a lot of help at home with social skills and manners at an early age. I was not motivated to study in high school because the subjects seemed boring to me. Biology class and working on construction projects were my main interest. Luckily, my high school science teacher used my interests to motivate me to study. We did interesting science projects, and in the process I realized I had to study “the boring stuff” to reach my goal of becoming a scientist.

Mentors were another important influence in my life and career. My high school science teacher mentored me, even into college, and several employers mentored me at my first jobs.

When my anxieties grew overwhelming, I turned to medication that helped me stay on an even keel. I realize that medication is not the answer for everyone. Yet, all of the above—and more—have allowed me to continue the work I love.

As long as the livestock industry continues to use the handling facilities and equipment I have designed for the past 50 years, my thoughts live and my life has meaning. If my efforts to improve the treatment of cattle and pigs make real improvement in the world, my life is meaningful.

This book was born out of my frustration and fear that many on the autism spectrum were missing out on the very important experience of work. I feared they would never know the satisfaction of contributing to their families and their communities, of being independent and economically self-sufficient.

To build success, parents should help their children develop their natural talents. Often, these talents are the first steps toward a paying job later on. Drawing, writing, building models, programming computers or landscaping yards—all of these can grow into paying jobs. Talent speaks for itself and can sell itself, if given a chance and a decent portfolio.

Parents must also help young people learn the skills needed to find and keep a job. These skills are first learned at home. In hindsight, I was lucky to be a child of the 1950s. The more structured lifestyle that was prevalent then was very helpful to me. For example, meals with the entire family provided opportunities to learn social skills. Other helpful activities included playing lots of board games and card games where, among other things, I learned to take turns. I was expected to sit still through dinner, to be polite to others, to do my chores, and to get along with my siblings. As I grew older, I was expected to work. At age 13, I held down my first job, working two afternoons a week as a seamstress’ assistant. Later I worked on my aunt’s ranch, at a school for children with autism and other conditions, and at a research lab when I was a college student. Although I wasn’t crazy about all of my jobs all of the time, they forced me to become more responsible.

Although my parents provided plenty of assistance for me, they also had high expectations. It is those expectations that have helped me navigate the world. For youths on the autism spectrum, this is especially important because they will have to work harder to prove themselves in our fast- paced, competitive global economy. The good news is that with the tremendous labor shortage facing the United States when the baby boomers retire in the next five to ten years, employers will look more to those of us with disabilities to fill jobs for which we once would not have been considered.

Finally, young people need a mentor to give them guidance and valuable experience. Mentors introduce their protégées to the world, helping them find ways to navigate the sometimes confusing byways that life presents. After the initial introduction, they also help their protégées stay on track and develop their talents by serving as the sounding board for ideas, plans, and dreams.

This book is designed to take readers—those on the autism spectrum and their family members, teachers, counselors, and other adults who make a difference in young lives—through the career-planning process. It includes information on discovering and growing the talents and interests that might lead to satisfying work as well as a career-planning and job-search process. These are ideas that have helped me succeed:

Chapter 1, “Autism Spectrum Disorders and Their Effect in the Workplace,” includes a discussion of the characteristics of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) as they relate to the workplace.

Chapter 2, “Easing into the Workplace,” focuses on:

Sensory issues, anger management, medicationsAdvice on developing and using social skills on the jobInformation about organizational skills to help you thrive on the job

Chapter 3, “Rules for Success on the Job,” describes the strategies and skills you need to acquire to help make your work life more successful and fulfilling.

Chapter 4, “Finding a Vocation You Love,” is a young people’s guide to finding a vocation that will not only feed their souls but also help put food on the table. This includes a section on taking advantage of the services offered by Vocational Rehabilitation.

In Chapter 5, “Searching for an Ideal Job,” you’ll find information about the job search process.

Chapter 6, “Do What You Do Best,” lists jobs that are particularly appropriate for the different ways of thinking that characterize those of us on the autism spectrum:

Visual thinkersMusic/math brainsNonvisual thinkers with verbal brains

Chapter 7, “Best Jobs for Individuals on the Autism Spectrum,” consists of profiles of careers and jobs suited for individuals on the autism spectrum. An aircraft mechanic, computer programmer, industrial equipment specialist, librarian, and others tell their own stories on how they got into their successful careers.

Chapter 8, “Entrepreneurship,” explores this burgeoning area with a special focus on the pros and cons for individuals on the autism spectrum. Great advice is offered by the Abilities Fund, a national community development organization designed to advance entrepreneurial opportunities for Americans with disabilities.

Chapter 9, “Advice from Those Who Have Gone Before: Autistic Individuals Tell Their Stories,” consists of the stories of three individuals on the autism spectrum who have been successful in their careers. The chapter gives firsthand insights into the different paths and routes people take in discovering the work that fits them.

Finally, the book concludes with an appendix that consists of:

References and resourcesInformation on employees’ legal rights in the workplace under the Americans with Disabilities ActA brief discussion on self-disclosure in the workplaceJob search tips

I hope you will find this information useful as you begin your job search or business exploration. Good luck to you and happy job hunting.

— Temple Grandin