I'd always heard he was based on Kim Peek, though that may just be the savant skill aspects.
Kim Peek himself wasn't actually autistic, he had Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum, so he had essentially
a brain split in two that was capable of doing two things at once. In his case it seems like both hemispheres
had savant capabilities. Apparently he didn't have social communication difficulties, but he did have
lots motor skills and daily living problems, and probably 'executive functioning' issues.
Maybe they actually based the character on a number of different people, and on the definition of autism itself.