What’s we aspies need – and what we don’t need

I disagree with the systematic implementation of forced social skills training in American schools for children with Asperger’s.  The intention behind this program is good – because it is very difficult if not impossible to function in the office world if you cannot read social cues.

But I must say I feel lucky in a way that I was not diagnosed with Asperger’s until I was 25 and did not accept the devastating implications of this diagnosis until I was 35 years old.  Why? Because I can imagine the horror of being subjected to social skills training as a child.  There is no worse form of brutality for a child with Asperger’s than being forced to learn social skills.  The bottom line is that with Asperger’s we cannot learn social skills.

I know that personally I can master any foreign language that I want.  I can also master accounting, mathematics through calculus, finance, numbers, real estate, and the complex dynamics of international relations.   But expecting me to learn social skills is about like trying to teach a cat to speak Chinese.  I basically have the social IQ of plant life and I accept this fact about myself. 

No, what we need is for at least some employers to accept the fact that those of us with Asperger’s cannot read social cues and thus cannot function in an office setting.  We need to have more high-paying jobs that do not require working in an office.  In my case I am enormously frustrated because I am extremely good at learning languages and yet I cannot find work as a freelance language translator since I cannot work in an office.

In other cases people with Asperger’s might have superior skills in the higher branches of mathematics, actuarial sciences, hard sciences like biology, chemistry, and medicine, computer science, and perhaps quantitative finance.  These people need to be offered the chance to work in their fields without being subjected to the games of office politics.  In this way they can make contributions to fields such as scientific research, and employers including large pharmaceutical companies can benefit from their skills.  Scientific employers would be foolish to exclude candidates with superior intellectual ability in their field simply because they have weak social skills. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/16/aspergers-syndrome-employment-problems

This excellent article from the Guardian newspaper in the UK indicated that 300,000 adults in the UK have Asperger’s syndrome or another autism spectrum disorder.  It also mentioned that in 2009 the Autism Act was passed and that some disability advisors are now being trained to recognize Autism.

But the bottom line to me is that the office world is driven entirely by social skills.  Thus, a person who cannot read social cues cannot function in the office world.  No employer in the world is going to make the office setting even remotely humane for a person with Asperger’s. 

We need instead to expand dramatically the range of employment opportunities for people with Aspergers that do not depend upon working in an office.