Autism Traits Prove Valuable for Software Testing

Back in 2009 we ran a story about a Chicago based non-profit company that trained high-functioning autistic people to be software testers. Two years later Aspiritech has grown to offer services in Belgium, Japan and Israel. Autistic debuggers are used by large clients like Oracle and Microsoft and have proven to be so good in fact that companies are now recruiting to meet demand. From the article: "Aspiritech's board of directors includes social service providers, therapists, a vocational expert and a software engineer. The nonprofit also received start-up advice and consultation from Keita Suzuki, who has co-founded a similar company, called Kaien, in Japan. Aspiritech has hired and trained seven recruits with Asperger's syndrome. These recruits have since worked on software-testing projects for smartphone and cloud-computing applications. Aspiritech now offers functional-, compatibility- and regression-testing, as well as test-case development, with experience in cloud-computing platforms including Salesforce."

Comments

What they really should do

[Anonymous Coward]

Is just recruit people who bought minecraft. It's really part of the same population set, but these one's are already used to using computers for 10 hours a day doing the same repetitive thing over and over.

Re:What they really should do

[Anonymous Coward]

... but these one's are already used to using computers for 10 hours a day doing the same repetitive thing over and over.

And you hit up Slashdot how many times a day?

Re:Aspergers / Autism

[Z34107]

The most over-self-diagnosed conditions on the planet, thanks to the perceived ability to explain social awkwardness and claim a special area of brilliance.

That, and taking Aspergers frees up stat points for you to allocate elsewhere.

Re:Properly traine software testers

[dkleinsc]

Autism is irreverent.

Man, I don't go in for formality either, but I don't think autism is any more irreverent than any other disease. ~