Kyle Barton - Desiginer of virtual reality for autistics

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PLANO, Texas: Kyle Barton is a 28-year-old guy on the autism spectrum. But he lives like the diagnosis isn't there.

It's not that he's in denial; he just doesn't like the autism label.

He's got other things on his mind, such as designing the latest development in a virtual learning programme steered by the University of Texas at Dallas' Centre for BrainHealth.

The programme, called Charisma, helps adults on the autism spectrum sharpen their perception of social cues and responses through real-time conversations in a virtual setting.

Barton knows the hurdles that high-functioning adults must jump for acceptance in a world that doesn't “know what to do with them”, as he says. A world that would sometimes rather ignore them. A world that often seems just barely out of reach.

For him, it's real life.

Barton spent two years looking for a job after graduating from the University of Texas at Dallas. Prospective employers laughed him out of dozens of interviews, he said. He's even had people accuse him of not being on the spectrum.

“They still have this very Rain Man image of autism,” he said, referring to the 1988 movie starring Dustin Hoffman.

Now a staff instructor at the nonPareil Institute, a Plano-based non-profit that teaches adults with autism job skills such as coding and video game design, Barton's trying to make the world better for others like him.

“I liken being on the spectrum to sort of being separated by a chain link fence,” he said. “You can see through the links. You can see the larger world. You can stick your hands through the links. You can kind of feel it. You can smell it, taste and all that. But if you try to climb that fence, you find there's barbed wire at the top. And that's what it feels like.

Barton is a film buff. When he can, he visits the Texas Theatre to watch classic flicks.

He talks about movies like they're works of art, not “fleeting spectacles to be tossed aside with the popcorn tub”.

Now, he's designed a movie theatre of his own.

But here's the catch: The theatre isn't real. It only exists on Barton's computer screen. That means you can't smell the buttery popcorn or lick its salty grease off your fingers.

After using the program, participants have improved emotion recognition and understanding of others' intentions, the brain centre has found. Allen said they also are more likely to initiate conversations.

Brain imaging studies have credited the program with changing brain levels so that the brain recognises more socially relevant information.

After the first round of testing, nonPareil students had the biggest strides in confrontational situations such as self-advocacy and saying what they need, Allen said.

It's the kind of program that Barton says would have made middle school “a heck of a lot easier”.

Now, he's made it his mission to improve life for others with autism.

“I wanted to give them hope, show them that, 'Hey, they can make it',” he said. “A lot of people come here dejected. They just feel like they don't have any place to go.”