by Donna Eustice

Most people have at least heard of Autism. But hardly anyone has ever thought that autism could actually be a good thing. At the mention of the word autism, the mind pulls up images of a child sitting on the floor rocking repetitively, banging their heads against a wall or the floor, flapping their hands, or spinning objects. Unless a person has first hand knowledge of autism, these images, mostly derived from the media's portrayal of autism, are the first thing to pop into their heads. So how can autism be a good thing or even an advantage?

Temple Grandin, who has a Ph.D. in animal science from the University of Illinois, and is an assistant professor in animal science at Colorado State University, is autistic. She is also the author of two books, Emergence: Labeled Autistic (1982) and Thinking In Pictures (1995). One third of the cattle and pigs slaughtered in North America pass through livestock equipment she designed. According to Joseph P. Shapiro, "If the term autism conjures up images of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man or some head-banging unfortunate on a back ward, then Grandin is an accomplished stereotype blaster" (78). She firmly believes that since animals give so much to humans, they should be treated well up until the moment of their deaths.

So where does autism fit into this? Because of her concrete thinking, Temple Grandin is unable to think of things in generic terms like most people do. If she hears the word cat, instead of the picture of a generic cat popping into her brain, she mentally sees certain cats that she has known during her life. When someone speaks to her about a church steeple, she instantly pictures specific steeples she has seen. This ability enables her to actually picture in her mind exactly how a cattle chute she is designing will look and operate before it is ever put down on paper. Not only does she totally understand how the chute will operate, she can also see it from the animal's perspective. She designs the curves and walls so that they block the view of anything that might make the animal skittish, such as shadows, another animal, or a glimpse of someone who works in the packing plant. But her autistic way of thinking in scientific terms - she compares herself to Star Trek's logical thinking Mr. Spock - prevents her from viewing the animal's death with anything other than detachment. Yet if not for her autism, she would not be able to think in such concrete terms, and may not have actually turned one of her "fixations" into a life-long career.

Another example of how autism can work to a person's advantage is the story of Taylor Touchstone, a 10-year-old autistic boy who was lost in the swamp of Fort Walton Beach, Florida in August of 1996. In an article for the August 17, 1996 edition of the New York Times, Rick Bragg tells the story of the little boy who wandered alone through the swamp for four days. "He swam, floated, crawled, and limped about 14 miles, his feet, legs, and stomach covered with cuts from brush and briars that rescuers believed to be impassable, his journey lighted at night by thunderstorms that stabbed the swamp with lightning."

On August 7, 1996, Taylor went swimming with his mother, Suzanne, his sister, Jayne, and some friends in Turtle Creek on the reservation lands of the Air Force Base. He walked into the water, floated downstream, and disappeared from sight. He did not respond to his mother's calls. He was found by a fisherman named Jimmy Potts on Sunday, August 11, floating naked in the waters of the East Bay River. Six months earlier, four Rangers died while training in swampland near there.

Taylor's family believes that he survived, not in spite of his autism, but rather because of it. The alligator and snake infested area might have caused another child to have gone into panic, but not Taylor. His mother states in the article that, "He will fixate on a knot in a bathing suit's draw string - and not be concerned about the broader realm of his life. If that focus helped him survive, it is a miracle that it was my son and not some otherwise normal child who went for a four-day swim in the black water region. He may have paddled with the gators, and worried more about losing his trunks." She compared it to a talk she had heard by an autistic woman who stated that although most people in a forest might see the vastness of the trees, she might concentrate instead on a spider web. Army Rangers and sheriff's deputies could not fully penetrate the region. Yet somehow, Taylor did. Rick Hord of the Sheriff's Department stated, "The search area encompassed as much of that area as we could cover. He went farther."

This year, 9 year old Alex Mont was presented with a gold trophy for his perfect score on a national mathematics test. More than 85,100 students had taken the exam, and only 268 of them -including just seven fourth graders - got a perfect score. There are two sides to Alex. One side is his extreme giftedness in math, the other side is his autism. When he was four years old, he would ride in the cart when his parents took him grocery shopping with them and convert the soda bottles from liters to quarts. Susan Levine, a Washington Post Staff Writer tells us in her June 23, 1997 article for the Washington Post that "He conquered fractions before kindergarten and soon after grasped that division was multiplication in reverse. In second grade, giggling to himself one night in his bedroom, he figured out the equation for an infinite mathematical sequence. His floor- to-ceiling bookshelf is filled with titles such as ‘Archimedes' Revenge.'" His mother, Nadine Goodman explains, "He's a high-functioning autistic kid with severe social problems - who does calculus."

Alex will also participate this summer in a three-week math and science institute at John Hopkins University's Center for Talented youth. To qualify for this program, a fourth grader like Alex has to place within the 70th percentile for seventh graders on an advanced test of reasoning ability. Alex placed at the 99th percentile for ninth graders. This was the highest level that could be pinpointed from the results.

When he went with his Cub Scout pack to tour a local stone company as part of their study of rocks, Alex concentrated on the company's pricing system instead of the merchandise. He asked the manager why it was cheaper to buy twenty five of the eighty pound bags of gravel than to order a bulk ton delivery. Alex's mother says he started studying unit pricing when he was three years old.

I am a member of three different listservs on the internet dealing with autism, two of which are anonymous sources. I posted the questions, "1) What are some other examples or ways in which autism can be a positive thing, and 2) Why is autism perceived as such a terrible thing and never positive?" to these listservs. I received 14 responses. Some of the answers first question included following

"Many of our world's great thinkers had autistic tendencies and the gifts they gave to the planet are amazing. Einstein in particular, didn't talk until late and had many autistic traits. Bill Gates is another. . . . If one considers that the new 'politically correct' definition of autism is that a person's brain is 'wired differently' then it stands to reason that anyone who as an IQ in the 150 range will be perceived as having his brain 'wired differently' compared with the general population. Perhaps it is, from a Darwinian standpoint, necessary for the population to move toward the autistic spectrum in order to solve many of the mysteries of the world (AIDS, cancer) because these people don't let personal relationships get in the way of their true passion, often their work (often at the upper University level)."

This makes sense. It seems as if anyone who has ever been a "mover and shaker" in our society has always had a reputation of eccentricity. And many of these people have seemed to be loners.

"My nine year old chose to do his semester long project in LEAP on Bill Gates. He found that Gates has many Aspergers/Autistic traits: jumping and rocking, being very competitive (hates to lose at anything), happiness with solitary activities, shy, strong desire for control, pacing, dislike for small talk. . . . People who are brilliant--think differently and that is the key to their brilliance."

The next person's response actually came in response to the final sentence of the response above. It seems to be the consensus that people's differences are important in giving us a well- balanced society.

"_____'s brains is wired differently then [sic] everyone else and he is certainly brilliant because of that! We need to remember this when we are dealing with the negative aspects." "My son . . . has a certain innocence, lacking the worldly traits of other kids his age. This includes his disinterest in conforming to the crowd, ie mean behaviors, teasing of other kids, trying to be ‘cool', showing off and bragging.... He (and other autistic kids) has a heavenly genuineness that I wouldn't trade for the world. He is internally sweet..."

I have noticed this with my own child. She has a sweetness about her, and does not know anything about being mean. The concept is beyond her.

"I have spend [sic] many years in the high school classroom teaching the gifted, and those who are highly gifted with IQ's above 150 are very different from their peers, and they do indeed share many traits of our own children. Giftedness by it's very definition means that this [sic] kids are not normal and the more standard deviations they are from that 100 norm, the more eccentric they seem to be. . . . I don't think I've ever had a highly gifted kid who didn't have some (in some cases many) characteristics associated with ASD [Autism Spectrum Disorder]. When the brain is wired for genius, this is part of the package."

This was very interesting to me. This was something new that I learned about gifted children. I had never imagined that some of them might exhibit some of the same behaviors that an autistic child would.

"I know a young man who is unidentified so probably this could not be used...however his mom recognizes now that he is/was hyperlexic. He is a chess champion. Learns well through vizualization [sic]. As a young child there were many many difficult behavior problems but now he is in university [sic] and studying maths and physics."

listservs on the internet dealing with autism, two of which are anonymous sources. I posted the questions, "1) What are some other examples or ways in which autism can be a positive thing, and 2) Why is autism perceived as such a terrible thing and never positive?" to these listservs. I received 14 responses. Some of the answers first question included following> Hyperlexia is along the autism spectrum. Hyperlexic children have an intense interest in letters and numbers, and for many of them, the names of letters or numbers are their first words. These children often teach themselves to read before the age of five.

"I can think of several positive things such as: my kids don't seem to have a mean bone in them and my oldest is always telling the bullies off in school; _____ also has developed an artistic and math ability; he can repeat any song or verse so we think maybe he'll be an actor; he hardly ever gets hurt; and lastly both of my sons posess [sic] a great amount of energy."

An intense interest in music can also be a symptom of autism, although like typical children, no two autistic children are alike. Some autistic people develop "savant" abilities, which means that they learn to do something extremely well but can't apply it in their everyday lives. Those who develop abilities but can apply them often can make a living using those abilities.

"On a personal level, having an autistic child has forced us to make lifestyle changes that we would not have considered otherwise.... _____ has also taught us to be more tolerant, to be more understanding and to be more thankful for what we have! I am much less judgemental [sic] than I was before we became intimate with autism. And even the child who is the most "unreachable" can still teach us all the most important lesson of life: how to give unconditional love!! If people learned to be loving toward the most difficult autistic child, this world would be a better place!!!"

For myself, having an autistic child in my life has also given me an intense fascination for people of all disAbilities. I often wonder when I go hiking to a favorite spot if there would be a way to get a person in a wheelchair out there so they could see it too, or how to tell a blind person what it looks like so they could "see" the beauty too.

"There is a fine line between perseveration and perseverance. When ____ uses her perseveration to accomplish something thought to be impossible for her, people remark on her perseverance. . . . when she started her science fair project last year, she became obsessed with the topic and learned everything she could about it. When the time came to talk to the judges, she impressed them so much that she won grand prize at her school, and Excellence in Biology (the equivalent of second grand) at the county wide fair. It wasn't that long ago that we were told to put her in a functional placement..."

Even in this day and age when no one would even think about putting a child with a physical disAbility into an "asylum" like they were in the past, it is not uncommon for a parent to be advised to institutionalize their autistic child.

"For me, it is hard to distinguish sometimes between what is caused by the autism, and what is caused by just his normal, wonderful personality. _____ is only four, so he hasn't had to choose a career, or get lost somewhere, but I can tell you he is a pretty remarkable child. The following is some of the autism I believe:

1. He taught himself to read at age three.
2. He doesn't become involved in the latest "fad", so is not as influenced by things as other children are. For instance, he doesn't particularly like watching cartoons, so he does not have to have the latest power ranger [sic] toy, or whatever is in now. He loves to watch PBSshows, but doesn't clammer [sic] for the toy when we are in the store....
3. the [sic] concepts of anger and violence, for the most part, escape him. He would never say, hit another child because they took his toy, he would never get mad at being called a name - he would laugh right along with them.
4. He still loves to cuddle, hug, etc. He is not such a "big boy that he can't do that any more. . . ."

"We tend to be honest, straightforward, and stick to our principles. We can develop special skills in a variety of areas, perhaps due to a general ability to concentrate on abstract information. Most of us probably are not affected by advertizing very much, and neither, I believe, by charismatic leaders.

"Personally, I find it useful that I shut out a lot of negative emotional stuff and power struggles automatically - it doesn't exist to me unless I want to pay attention, or someone explains what's happening."

One of the biggest challenges facing even a high-functioning autistic person is the inability to understand the emotional responses of those of us they call "NT's (NeuroTypicals)". Because social skills are a big problem for them, finding a job that they might be able to do better than anyone else is hard to do because they often get shut out during the interview stage.

"Well, a while back I took a test (the GATB test) for appraising me in relation to being able to work - seemed like a good idea at the time - much of this test had little relation to me, but one particular part of the test was interesting...

"It was about seeing flat shapes and visualizing them bent into 3-D shapes, as if they were sheet metal to be bent and formed. I really liked that part and wanted to do more of it... turned out I got the highest score the woman who tabulated the scores had seen in ten years.

"I see this as similar to Temple Grandin's ability - an almost palpable sense of imagery that can be made to do my bidding. There are times when I have invented something - I tinker with audio equipment and have a number of original concepts at work in my daily life, some very novel - and have _known_ [Using an underscore immediately before and after a word on the internet is a way of stressing that word, since many mail programs do not support italics or bold print. Writing in all capital letters is considered to be yelling, and is therefore considered to be rude.] immediately what the result of my idea would be. I'd be surprised and uncomprehending when other people did _not_ immediately know...after all, frequently the other person would be somebody far more competent in many things, far more successful than I, yet they wouldn't _see_ it no matter how I tried to make them see it.

"This is not always strictly visual, in the sense that Temple Grandin explains it. For me, it's more like a sort of overall ‘grokking' or knowing of a thing. I get similar senses about trends and implications in fields (like computers) that interest me enough to have me keeping up with the news and background."

As to my second question of "Why is autism perceived as such a terrible thing and never positive?", the general consensus seemed to be that it was because of bad press, that the media tends to sensationalize the worst. However, I did receive a few comments that surprised me. One person stated, "Because it so often is terrible. Being deprived of human contact, one way or another, has emotional consequences. Also, some of the positive sides could be hard to imagine until you see them in daily life." Another response said simply, "We need better definitions." But perhaps my favorite response was, "Because people tend to see the positives as being "in spite of" the person's autism. All negative behaviors--even those that occur in statistically normal kids--are seen as being part of the person's autism."

I think it is time we all stop to look at the positive in everyone.....those who are disAbled, as well as those who are not.

(c) 1998 Donna Eustice