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Workers On Autism Spectrum Finding Careers In Software Testing
rjmarvin writes According to Autism Speaks, about 85% of people who have autism in the United States are currently unemployed or underemployed, but a social enterprise organization called Meticulon is training autistic individuals for highly skilled jobs in software testing. According to Meticulon, autistic people often possess sharp memory and pattern matching skills as well as attention to detail, making them ideal candidates for software testing jobs. Each year's crop of autistic students or Meticulon Consultants is tested and evaluated to develop their MindMap, a unique profile of skills and ideal work environment ultimately used to find these trained software testers an ideal job.
Very true. I worked with a very highly placed software engineer that I swear was deep into the Autism spectrum. He was a fanatic about coffee, hot sauces - and could code around any other two people I knew. He also had no ability to comprehend sarcasm - so don't even try it on him, it wouldn't work. Yes, I agree there are MANY people in the IT field that fall into the Autism spectrum. They can be successful here.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
Folks on the autism spectrum may well be better at testing than folks who aren't.
But they may also find the repetitive or tedious parts of testing less painful than folks who aren't.
I know software testing is a big field, encompassing a wide range of activities, and that every job has its monotonous and unrewarding parts. But, from what I've seen -- working with SW development, working with testers, working with kids (and maybe some adults) on the spectrum -- the things that "most of us" find monotonous and tedious are frequently rewarding and reassuring for them.
To the extent that this is true, it's a terrific win/win/win scenario. Companies get people particularly well-suited for the job. People well-suited for the job get work that they enjoy. People not well-suited for the job don't have to stick with drudgery because "nobody likes to do it but somebody has to".
The hard part is finding what that "thing" is and being able to integrate it into your life in a beneficial way.
For people on the low end, I strongly recommend a ketamine trip. It fixed how I relate to the world, and I no longer need to fake normal human interaction. Dealing with people is now effortless.
Meh, as soon as 'Autism Speaks' is in the mix 'exploiting the vulnerable' becomes a very real concern. Autistic individuals, at least one in activism, tend to think rather poorly of the group since they have a pretty anti-autistic track record that focuses on pretty much everyone's needs except the person with autism.
The thing about a spectrum: there's no hard line.
Don't overassociate here. You can enjoy the work, solving problems, figuring out patterns, without showing any substantial regressive symptoms. You could arbitrarily declare me autistic to fit your model, based on the fact that I hate noise, and I'm moderately introverted, but to me, those are just personality traits, and I doubt a clinical diagnosis would agree.
Workers On Autism Spectrum...
Everyone is on the autism spectrum. That's why they call it a spectrum.
Alternative post: No thanks, I'll wait for the Autism Amiga.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
A good question. The difference is probably delivery time and interaction with product owners.
Autistic individuals can often be very OCD. An autistic individual who finds every problem in the process of coding the actual application may cause delays while they identify and fix every one of them. That compulsion may be too strong for them to overcome. This is a problem, even with some "neurotypical" programmers. You don't want to make the perfect the enemy of the good.
If the code already exists, the autistic QA individual will still find all the issues, but then decisions by people with less compulsion can be made about "need to fix now", "patch", or "won't fix", without delaying the code delivery cycle.
Most of the time, you need something that does the job, but it is nice to know what you could do better, or where errors have crept into the process for later polish.
There are also people on the spectrum who have developed coping mechanisms.
My son was diagnosed with Asperger's. We're nearly positive I'm an Aspie too. I'm not going for a diagnosis because it would cost money we don't have and wouldn't help my son any. I've already learned all the coping mechanisms I need. I can delay or internalize my meltdowns so I don't become a screaming wreck in the middle of a meeting because someone said something that set me off. I can deal with people in certain social situations but not others. (I'm fine in a business environments but stick me in a loud party and watch me squirm and attempt to flee.)
My son has also started showing some of these coping strategies - though obviously not as robust as mine as he hasn't had the time to learn them all. Still, it's both gratifying and frustrating to hear from his teacher how he had a great day while he's melting down at home - having delayed it all school day. Gratifying because he's not doing it in school (which made him a target for bullying before). Frustrating because the teachers don't see what's setting him off.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
As the parent of someone with Autism and likely someone who is undiagnosed himself, I hate that group. They blame Autism on vaccines and want to find a "cure" for Autism. My son and I don't have a disease. We don't need to be cured. We need assistance in dealing with the neurotypical (non-Autistic) world. If you were to "cure" every Autistic person, you'd eliminate a lot of people looking at things differently. I'd wager that a lot of the eccentric geniuses throughout history had Autism. Imagine where we'd be without them.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Referring to the following article, SAP has done this since April of 2014. My understanding is the program has been successful for both the company and the employees.
I have close friends who have an autistic child, and programs like these give them hope. I admire companies that follow Sun Tzu's philosophy that all people can be useful if you look for their strengths.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
One of the things about Autism is it is subjectively diagnosed based on symptoms, so there is no way to really tell for sure if it one condition or 20. With the difficulty researchers have been having in finding causes and whether the causes are genetic or enviromental, my suspicion leans toward multiple conditions with overlapping symptomologies.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
There is nothing more noble that creating opportunities for work for people who cannot create them for themselves. That's literally allowing people to survive on this planet where they couldn't figure out how to survive on their own without the employer.
The only people who should be careful are socialists/fascists and all types of dictatorial assholes, once they destroy the private sector there will be no jobs and then you'll know what it's like to live without anybody creating any opportunities for you not to be a subsistence hunger/gatherer and people with mental issues will not be doing that well under those circumstances compared to the others at all.
You can't handle the truth.
I was told that autism spectrum children generally like to associate with adults rather than people their age, since adults are more predictable and more likely to stick to the rules of human interaction. They also often need to learn human interaction explicitly rather than implicitly.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
When you have people on the board of directors that have actually seriously contemplated commiting Filicide-Suicide
I'd be more surprised if none of them had contemplated it. I've seen what severe forms of autism can do to a family. Is it really at all a stretch that having a child with special needs, and the pain, frustration, stress, pressure, and emotional drain that puts on everyone would result in people thinking along those lines.
Sure autism spectrum is often present in geniuses and eccentrics and other people who no doubt the world is richer for having. And it is such broad spectrum that arguably everyone is somewhere on it. But at the other end of the spectrum there is a lot of real misery, and people trapped in unbearable situations, that cannot lead normal lives, that require round the clock care, and assistance with even basic rudimentary functions, even that get violent, creating a financial and emotional drain on caregivers who rarely get adequate support.
I'd probably contemplate it too.
I know that this is off topic but why does underemployment have to be seen as such a negative thing. I am on the spectrum, I have a masters degree in Information Systems, and I drive a truck. I love my job! I don't consider it being underemployed at all. I have precious solitude, books on tape, the ability to take a nap during the day, and a boss who I communicate over text message. The office requires some really strong social skills and savvy personalities. Forget all of that noise and stress. I'm far happier and more successful as a truck driver than I ever was administering windows and unix systems. I gave up trying to get any kind of accommodation from a workplace, instead I chose a career to suite my temperament and interests. The bottom line is that society places too much emphasis on a very saccharine, one dimensional definition of success and happiness. I now see success and happiness as holding down a job I like and living below my means. If I could do my professional live over, I never would've gone to college - I would've gone right to tractor trailer training school. Instead, I got caught up in society's expectation for me to make it big in some bullshit white collar gig and lead a miserable daily life. Yeah sure, I don't make high five figure salary anymore but no amount of toys that that money could buy me gave me any happiness whatsoever. This is just my 0.02 cents but I feel a sense of freedom in the past six months that I've never felt in my adult, professional life. Choose a career based on your temperament, aptitude, and interests - not on how much money you can make or what society expects of you.
Makes for easy job interviews as well. Find out where the pain is, talk a lot about the issues they're encountering, and you give people the impression you are the solution to their pain.
Getting to the point where you're allowed to talk to someone who even has the pain is the problem.
Have you looked into Sensory Processing Disorder?
Back in the day of my primary education (I'm 39), there was no Aspergers or Autism spectrum. They just dumped everyone who didn't fit the mold into a separate classroom and were done with us. Today I *would* have been diagnosed Aspergers, as would my father if those resources existed back in his day.
My three year old son is following in the family footsteps (will surely be another engineer!). Luckily I married a superb 2nd grade teacher with a Masters Degree in Special Education. She has recognized early on that he's not quite like the other kids and has found an Occupational Therapist and a Developmental Ophthalmologist who recognized the signs of Sensory Processing Disorder and work with us several times a month to show us exercises to help develop those areas of his brain and treat the issues early on. We've seen improvements already - less meltdowns in crowded social situations, less toe-walking, improvements in gross motor skills, etc.
It's all new stuff. Our pediatrician was quick to point out that Sensory Processing Disorder isn't even recognized by the AAP, but it's worth at least Googling the subject if you've never heard of it.
If you ever watch any presentations given by lennart poettering, you'd possibly think the same about him. he is technically brilliant, sharp, answers questions accurately without appearing to think and all this in a second language, he can appear to be tactless in answering questions when in reality he is just answering them directly without emotion. Its just sad to see how posters mistreat him in these forums.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
My son seems to like associating with people older than him (who are more his intellectual peers) and people who are younger than him (who are more his social/emotional peers). Actually, he'll associate with anyone who is kind to him since he can be starved for friendship.
That's one misconception about people with Asperger's. Others think they are anti-social, but we're not. We just find social situations complicated and difficult. We long for social contact but when we get it often can't stand it for long. Growing up (before I even heard of Asperger's), I likened it to seeing a spotlight and wanting more than anything to be inside it. Then, once you stepped inside, being blinded by the spotlight's light and wanting to leave it as quickly as possible. Many Aspies will shy away from social contact rather than deal with the difficulties and this, from the outside, looks like anti-social behavior.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
From one Aspie to another, here's how to explain the importance hair hygiene: "Messy hair leaves too much visual entropy above your face. This distracts people talking to you." But then I'm more likely to just wear a hat in a public place.