Growing Acceptance of Autism in the Workplace

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This is the lead story in the CBS News website!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-growin ... workplace/

Interestingly "The Good Doctor" is the number one program on Australian TV

This is really exciting news! And this story is only about people who are openly recognized as being AS by their employers and co-workers. IMO AS people are already a huge force behind many of the most successful companies, whether they are recognized as being AS or not. In my experience, many of these successful people probably don't even know they are AS themselves.

These feel good stories tend to concentrate on the same 5 or 6 companies and on STEM jobs. This is both good and bad. Hopefully if an influential company like Microsoft is doing it others will be inclined to follow. On the other it further propogates the autistic as savant stereotype. Most of us are left out of this so called autism acceptence.

The day autistic employees are not news because autistic employees are not unusual is what we should be striving.

The stories may be about the same 5 or 6 companies but there are many companies studying and copying them who don't want to "miss out" on the newest hiring intelligence that is now out there. I already see a few big names glaringly missing from this story, like IBM and Apple, who probably could have been included but don't have formal programs. I also worry that true, full-scale Autism recognition could backfire in the "who's taking my job" sense, so I am in no hurry for the big expose to come out into the mainstream consciousness. Sometimes I think it is better to remain invisible contributors as long as we can, to keep on accruing those measurable contributions --- but I'm doubtful there's much time left as blood tests will soon be available and then soon become cheap. When people wake up to how many we are, I fear they may not be ready for that awakening.