Neurodiversity is a notion that has gained much currency recently, and rightly so. It is the idea that neurological differences like autism and ADHD are the result of normal, natural variations in the human genome, and that these different ways of thinking and being are to be championed as contributors to it, and to our evolution as human beings. This view has not always been the case but as it becomes more accepted and widespread, it will have even greater implications for the education of students on the autism spectrum and their acceptance into the workplace and society.
We also want to emphasize the need to find meaningful and gainful employment for our graduates, to use their talents and skills to the fullest, and to view them through the lens of ability rather than disability. This positive view of those on the autism spectrum, to view them in terms of their strengths rather than their weaknesses, to see them in terms of what they can do and accomplish, rather that in terms of their limits and limitations is the single-most important change in perspective that has meaning for these individuals. We want to view them as having a variety of gifts, talents, and abilities, particularly their strengths in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) but also with their own passions and interests, whatever those passions and interests may be. We want to provide a springboard to launch their strengths, to accelerate them, to turn them into excellences which can one day provide a focus for college and career. That, in a nutshell, is the philosophy of our approach on how to support and leverage nascent STEM skills in individuals with autism, and what follows will be largely a spelling out of these ideas in more detail.
It is worth reminding ourselves just how far we’ve come since those early identifications of autism. When I was growing up in South Africa, autism was a term largely applied to those who today we would regard as moderately to severely impacted and so it was natural to accept that the word ‘autism’ was derived from the Greek ‘autos’ meaning the self. These were individuals who were locked up in themselves, unable to communicate thoughts and feelings, unable to break free into the larger world around them. By the 1960s, the prevalence of autism was thought to be around 1 in 2,000. By the year 2,000 it was 1 in 150. According to the CDC, today the frequency is 1 in 54. This increase in prevalence is partly due to a broader and more inclusive understanding of what it is to be autistic.
The CDC estimated in 2014 that about 1% of the world’s population has autism. With a world population of 7.8 billion, that puts the number of people on the spectrum at 78,000,000. That is a very large number, over 20% of the population of the US, if you imagined that all of the individuals with autism were collected in this country. It is hard sometimes not to be daunted by the scale of the challenge in the face of the solutions that we’re offering. We sometimes seem to be offering so little to counter so much. What we need is solutions that will scale, that we can ramp up and leverage, so that a small force, a small action can have a large, can have a tremendous result.
My presentation will begin with a contrast between two ways of thinking about autism and consequently two different ways of behaving towards those who are on the spectrum. Which one of these ways of thinking you adopt will determine the language you use, the way in which you think these individuals ought to be supported and educated, and what you hope for them, what you think it will be possible for them to accomplish, and how we can support their efforts.
There has been a lot of talk about the strengths of those on the autism spectrum, but what are those strengths and what is their value? Are they strengths that can be leveraged for college and career? Are they strengths that they alone, this group of individuals on the spectrum, share, that marks them out? That will be our second focus. Third, we will show how these strengths relate to STEM, that many of the areas where young people on the spectrum thrive are in areas of technology: in IT, computer programming, robotics, in science. These are also areas where there is a huge demand for skilled workers: in digital technologies, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and more. Providing young persons on the spectrum a STEM education gives them the opportunity to not only develop skills in areas where they are enthusiastic, areas which they are keen to try or are already passionate about, but where they can hone those skills, and so stand side by side with their neurotypical peers.
A fifth area of focus is the needs of the modern workplace—what kinds of skills are in demand, what do you have to be able to do, to know, and to be. We know that certain technical skills are important, skills in programming or data base management, but what about essential personal, interpersonal skills and motivational skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, creativity and persistence. This group of essential skills, skills which everyone needs in order to be successful, are also ones that need to be integrated into the curriculum, need to be embedded, because they are not ones that this population, persons on the spectrum, come to naturally or easily. By embedding them, they see how these skills are important in daily social transactions. Lastly, we’ll turn to the many ways in which a STEM education supports students on the spectrum, from bolstering their self-esteem, by engaging them in an activity that they have a strong aptitude for, to lighting up a pathway for them that can lead to success in both their personal and professional lives, things that they or their parents might have aspired to on their behalf, but without having robust expectations that they would happen.
Much of the discussion of autism and autistic individuals is focused on the negative, on their limitations with social communication and interaction, on their limited interests and on their repetitive behaviors and on what needs to be done to remediate these by providing supports of one kind or another. Of course, it is necessary to provide interventions, and early on, in areas where the child would benefit from them, but none of us is marked entirely by what we do poorly, by our weaknesses, by our inabilities, by our limitations. All too often, a discussion of their strengths, of what these young people do or could do well is not a part of the conversation, and so we’re left imagining that the glass is less than half empty, that it’s all downside, that these individuals have no future, and so they and their families are left terribly unhappy, without solace or comfort or hope.
In the early days of STEM, we were making our first video of the students and their activities, and there was one student in particular, George, a senior at the time, and in the course of interviewing him the interviewer turned to him and asked, “Do you ever regret being born with autism, with it always being a part of you? Wouldn’t you wish to wake up one morning and just have it gone”? And George looked at her, a firm look on his face, and it was surprising when he answered so quickly, so confidently. “No No No”, he said, “I am autistic, that’s who I am! I couldn’t imagine being without it. I wouldn’t be me”. I wouldn’t be me…
Derek Paravicini is not a household name in this country, but there are Dereks in every country, including this one. Derek is blind as a result of oxygen toxicity during his time in the neonatal ICU—he needed the oxygen therapy to save his life as he was born very prematurely at just 25 weeks. Stevie Wonder, who is a household name in this country, became blind under very similar circumstances after a premature birth.
David has a severe learning disability as a result of the oxygen therapy effects on his developing brain. David is also on the autism spectrum. And he is an autistic savant, a musical prodigy. He has perfect pitch and can play any piece of music after hearing it just once. So, who is David Paravicini? He is a man with extraordinary musical abilities, and learning difficulties, and autism—he is all of those things. There is not just one face to Derek, just as there is not just one face to any of us.
Quite by chance, I heard on the news this morning about a young woman also blind because of oxygen therapy at birth, with no sight in one eye and just minimal vision in the other. She is a wheelchair user, and talked about her own lack of self-esteem, the humiliation by other children when she was young, and how she took up chess and became a champion—her words stayed with me. Find something that you do well, that you enjoy, and don’t dwell on your limitations. We all have those. She found her positive face in chess.
Which one of these two ways you adopt to think about autism is of great importance not only to how you view the child, the person, but also what you might think of their potential and possibilities. On the one hand, there is DSM-5, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 5th edition published in 2013 and which is now the standard reference that healthcare professionals use to diagnose mental and behavioral conditions, including autism spectrum disorder. One might well balk at the negative overtones of the term “disorder,” which implies that something is broken. This is true of Autism Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and many others. DSM-5 characterizes ASD in two behavioral domains (difficulties in social communication and social interaction, and unusually restricted, repetitive behaviors and interests) and is accompanied by a severity scale to capture the degree to which the individual might have the condition. This first way of looking at autism, then, is from a medical or biomedical point of view and in terms of what it says about autism at least, it is entirely focused on the individual’s areas of inability. Unsurprisingly then, what filters down into the child’s education, what sets the tone for their goals and their supports is almost entirely a function of correcting for this disorder, of attempting to remove its negative effects. There is not a word about the child’s strengths, their passions, or their interests. Contrast this with a world in which individual differences are celebrated, where alternative ways of looking at things enrich the discourse and the outcome, where autism is not a disorder, something to be cured, but an individual difference, something to be respected and supported.
I am reminded again of George who when asked whether he would choose to be freed of his autism responded, “without autism, without it I wouldn’t be me!” and so it seems to me that the difference between these two approaches, the biomedical approach and the social or neurodiversity approach, is whether you think autism is something you have, or whether it’s something you are, a way of being. George clearly believed, as many people on the spectrum appear to, that it’s something you are, like being blind or deaf. It’s an integral aspect of their being, not something you have that you might be cured of, and the fact that it’s a different way of being shouldn’t prevent us from seeing their talents and strengths, and their hopes and dreams. On the contrary, what is most often a barrier to their success is a lack of opportunity, a lack of understanding and not a lack of ability. Once their strengths are laid bare, there’s no limit to what they can achieve as long as the opportunities to do so are in place.
We all recognize the image of Greta Thunberg, Autism Activist, a force for change in confronting governments around the world to urge them to combat climate change. Although she is on the autism spectrum and has a diagnosis of OCD, she delayed telling the public this was the case as she knew that people would see this as a negative, an illness, and she didn’t want that to detract from her message. She is also well-known for comparing autism to something mighty and influential. “I have Asperger’s and that means I’m sometimes a bit different from the norm,” tweeted Greta. “And given the right circumstances—being different is a superpower.”
There are many traits that she has that embody a person on the spectrum, and I’ll list out a few:
- One is her ability to stay hyper-focused on a topic—we all know of young persons who develop interests and passions in trains or marine biology, in LEGOs or robots, in cartoons or periods of history. The first time we entered a FIRST robotics competition, a group of us went down to a high school in Placentia, California and the challenge was to build a functioning robot from scratch in just one day. It was this great opportunity; the team had never built a functioning machine before, and so it was a huge challenge, but there would be lots of support. Our team worked that day from 8am in the morning to 5pm, with one break of 10 minutes for pizza. I have never seen students so engaged, so motivated and so enthralled, and it was one of the best days the team ever had in building. You couldn’t pry them loose from what they were doing. They worked together, attacked and solved problems, asked for guidance when necessary, and through it all lodged not a single complaint. That kind of dedication and commitment, that kind of perseverance is often a hallmark of being on the spectrum but is rarely mentioned except in an offhanded manner as though it’s been noticed, but not worth capitalizing on, as though it has no practical or marketable value—on the contrary, to us it’s a special strength, and a gift.
- Having a broad knowledge of a subject of interest is another trait that Greta shares—it is not uncommon to find persons on the spectrum who have an encyclopedic knowledge of some area of interest. I’ve had students who’ve had detailed and thorough knowledge on topics as diverse as the Russian Secret Police (which was a little unnerving) and airport arrivals and departures, together with making extraordinary scale model structures of airports, and hangers for where the various major airlines are housed. These talents can be awe-inspiring and guiding them to good use, to a practical and worthwhile outlet, is how we perceive our role as educators.
- There is generally also a lack of concern with fame or status. Greta doesn’t appear to be motivated by fame and acclaim. She cares more about the cause that she’s supporting and advancing, that seems to matter more than personal aggrandizement.
- The ability to think outside the box, to bring a highly original perspective to problem-solving; that seems to be common to her too—most of the problems we face today are highly complex: climate change and environmental risk, global health challenges, economic disparity, food shortages, challenges to equitable distribution of resources, poverty and homelessness. The list is potentially endless. To get students to think about these issues, issues which they will have to address in their own lifetimes, we encourage them engage in challenges and competitions, and to work with others both within the school and with other schools.
One such challenge is to participate in combatting deforestation and to preserve biodiversity. Forests at risk are everywhere, in Nigeria, in Honduras, in Ghana and more. We’ve had our students work with Topher White, a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, who repurposes old smart phones for bioacoustics monitoring, to monitor the sound that illegal loggers make when they’re sawing down old growth trees. The phones are wired to act as listening devices in the forest and alert local officials on the ground when the phones pick up the sounds of logging. Rangers or lawyers on the ground can then get to the site quickly and put a stop to it. Our students were involved in reconfiguring the phones, in making them solar efficient and packaging them to be sent to various forest sites around the world.
- Although in the early years of autism research, autism was often associated with intellectual disability, evidence has been emerging that presents a picture that is quite to the contrary. A 2015 Cambridge University study of almost half a million people found that autistic traits (though not necessarily full-blown autism) are strongly associated with people occupied in STEM fields, areas known to have high demands on intelligence. This is true of Greta too
- Lastly, the lack of a hidden agenda—what you see and hear is what the message is, there is no guile or deception
We all have strengths, things that we’re good at, and using those strengths as a starting point with the child and building on them, provides us the opportunity to leverage those areas of interest and ability, into areas where interest may not be as high, or skills as proficient.
One such strength in Autism is the attention to detail, and another is the possession of strong visual skills, particularly visual discrimination. Both of these skills are essential in software testing and quality assurance and so are highly marketable. There are now a number of companies that have been established around the country—one such is Ultra Testing, a New York based start-up, founded by two MIT grads, that employs 70 workers remotely across 20 states, 75% of whom are on the autism spectrum. A quote from the founder, Rajesh Anandan, resonates with our thinking–: look at how much energy is spent trying to improve skills that are lacking compared with the energy spent nurturing their often-remarkable natural talents.
There are many organizations that have spung up to develop these natural talents and abilities in those on the spectrum, to ready individuals with such skills for the marketplace. One such is Specialisterne, which is Danish for The Specialists. Thorkil Sonne, the founder, has a son on the autism spectrum and when he was the technical director of a Danish software company, he was responsible for hiring software testers. His own young son had a strong memory and a sharp eye for detail, and Thorkil knew that these qualities were critical in software testers. In short, he realized that the very characteristics he was looking to hire in software testers were attributes that his son already had. So, he went out and established his own Copenhagen-based software testing firm which now has a world-wide footprint, with offices in Europe, Australia and the Americas. We view our task as dovetailing with organizations like Specialisterne, except at the K-12 level. While they take individuals on the spectrum and train them in technical fields so they can be gainfully employed, we asked ourselves the prior question: what do we need to do K-12 that can make a difference in our students’ lives post-high school? It is taking the long view of their education. We want to establish and enhance in them those skills and strengths that have a value in the marketplace, that students on the spectrum are strong in and have an aptitude for, and that can enrich their lives, and that can lead to college and career.
Six years ago, three former Mossad agents (agents from the Israeli Secret Service) launched an experimental Israeli Army program to recruit individuals on the autism spectrum, to harness their unique strengths—their “superpowers,” as one soldier puts it. The name of this big military program was Roim Rachok, Hebrew for “seeing into the future,” and one of its goals is to bring greater acceptance of neurodiverse individuals to the larger community. The elite group consists entirely of autistic teens who scan aerial-surveillance photos of the country’s borders, doing real-time visual analysis on a shifting sequence of thousands of satellite images, looking for the slightest sign of enemy activity. And sometimes what they’re looking for is tiny, appearing on a surveillance image as almost infinitesimal. Their work is crucial for protecting Israeli citizens and soldiers, but the work is also unforgiving. For nine hours a day, sometimes more during a crisis, they stare at the passing images and process highly complex data without tiring or becoming distracted. Why am I mentioning this here? Because we had one student, since graduated, who joined the Israeli military as part of the program, and as he himself pointed out, once he graduated from the program, went to work for industry with the most extraordinary skills that he had honed—he now works in IT in the private sector. His is an inspiring story of a new way to think about autism, one that accepts and empowers. And one that makes use of the abundant strengths and abilities of these individuals. Similar programs have been established in the Philippines and Denmark that use surveillance images in this way and have those on the spectrum trained to do visual analysis. This is an extraordinary use of just two of their strengths: visual analysis and extraordinary focus and endurance.
We’ve talked about autistic strengths in a variety of fields and their application in STEM areas, but there is deeper evidence of this connection. Enrollment in STEM majors in college is highest among those on the autism spectrum, even higher than enrollment in STEM majors in the general population. As has been reported, 34% of students with autism enroll in STEM majors in college compared with just 22.8% in the general population, and much lower numbers for students with other diagnoses. So, although students with autism enroll in college in much lower numbers than the general population, when they do enroll, they specialize in STEM subjects to a much greater degree. The question is, how do we best prepare them for college and keep them interested and engaged in STEM pursuits for that future, for success after graduation from high school?
One way is to provide them with Advanced Placement classes. AP classes give them a foretaste of what a college class is like, the depth of knowledge that is required, the ability to analyze and synthesize, to make sense of the data. So, we might offer AP classes in subjects as diverse as Calculus, Chemistry, and Computer Science, and from Physics to Physiology. We encourage students to take these classes, at least one during their high school years, as a practice run, something which they benefit from and which caters to their interests.
Another way of better preparing them for STEM pursuits is to arrange internships.
A couple of years ago, a 9th grade student developed a deep interest in biology—he delved into biochemistry, microbiology, and biophysics—he was insatiable with regard to anything to do with biology. We were fortunate to have a parent at the time who arranged an internship in his own research lab for the student over the summer. It was an opportunity for him to do serious work in a serious environment, and to be taken seriously. It was an invaluable experience and one that he was profoundly grateful for. Today, the young man is in college majoring in biology.
Another student, also bitten by the biology bug, went in his senior year to the Galapagos Islands, and while there photographed and catalogued a wide variety of species that he observed. We still have that presentation hanging on display—today he is thriving as a sophomore in college.
Not every student shares the promise or the interest of these, but there is no question that providing the opportunity to excel, to explore and to thrive is an essential ingredient in their success, and without it their pathway is much less clear.
A few years ago, we met a young man of very strong ability. He was diagnosed with autism and despite attending a number of schools, both public and private, had been unable to be successful.
This profile of a student with significant gifts but also significant challenges is not uncommon, and our approach, as it is with all students, is to meet the student where they are, with their current constellation of strengths and weakness, to support, develop and enhance the strengths, while scaffolding and addressing the areas of struggle.
In middle school with us, after we accepted him, this young man did high school math, in 9th grade he took AP Calculus BC without having taken Calculus before, and scored a 5, the highest score possible. He has just had his first mathematical paper published, this happened last year and was written when he was in 10th grade. I don’t need to tell you how unusual it is for a student to be published while still in school—it happens but it is very rare.
To have this young man be a part of the student body was a gift to not only him but also to the other students there. He made many friends, students gravitated to him because he was interesting, and interested. He had an insatiable curiosity and is a perfect example of what can be accomplished by providing multiple opportunities for success. His argumentativeness and other difficult behaviors vanished to be replaced with discussion and debate, and as you can see he has already begun to make his mark.
Often parents of an autistic child will ask what they can do to encourage their child, to find out what their child’s interests might be, or they’ll share: my child loves to take things apart, see how they fit together, or see what the various parts do. How do I encourage that when I myself might not be technically minded, or I don’t really understand what his interest is?
There are many opportunities to engage students in STEM activities, from STEM camps over summer or even during the year, to after school classes in a variety of activities including robotics, coding, electronics and many others. There are Maker Fairs, activities put on by museums, and Innovation Fairs for the community and these are opportunities for young persons to interact with each other as well as adults in making, building, and designing. Often, it’s in engaging in activities such as these that they first discover their passion for STEM. It’s in a low-key environment where they’re relaxed and they can just try things out, see what they like, and just move on when they’ve had enough. What is particularly helpful about these kinds of activities is that they all have a low bar to entry –simply pick up a stylus or pen or blocks or whatever’s in front of you and begin. It’s non-competitive, so you can engage with others, with each other, or simply do your own thing. There’s no right answer, no preferred strategy, no template to follow. Creativity and personal ingenuity rule.
Project-based learning teaches a skill or set of skills that are necessary in order to complete a task or project. This model of teaching has become extremely popular as it is engaging to the student and increases motivation while also developing much-needed skills. What is also implicitly and explicitly addressed is the application of knowledge. All too often students are required to rote learn without any opportunity to apply what they’ve learned, or even know how what they’ve learned is to be applied. In PBL, students sometimes work individually, but more often in small groups which bolsters their ability to communicate and collaborate more effectively.
Another point to be made here is that although STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math, it is more than a collection of just those subjects and areas of interest. It’s also a way of thinking, a way of confronting a problem. If an engineer is charged with building a bridge, for example, the first thing they’re likely to do is ask a whole series of questions about the bridge. What kind will it be? A footbridge for pedestrians? An overpass for industrial or commercial use? What kinds of load will it carry? And where will it be? Over a river, or over a highway? What kinds of footings are possible? Are there natural hazards such as floods or earthquakes? After gathering all of this information, the engineer will only then go into the design phase and sketch out or develop a series of prototypes. After testing out the prototypes, they will return to the design phase, taking the results of the testing to improve the design. A similar strategy is at work in science—testing of hypotheses may lead to a reformulation or a refining of the hypotheses and further testing. This iterative process of enquiring, designing, prototyping, and refining is as much at work in the arts and humanities as it is in science and engineering.
A fundamental of science is curiosity, to observe or notice something and wonder why, to test something out to see what happens, to experiment, and to ponder why the result you expected didn’t happen. Children are naturally curious, they are born explorers, wanting to see how things work and why. They are natural scientists, and it’s that natural wonder at the world around them that we want to encourage and develop. All too soon that natural creativity and wonder is driven out of them, regimented away so that by the time they’re in upper elementary and ready to enter middle school it’s lost. It’s just another way in which boys and girls alike lose their interest in STEM at a very young age.
It is important kids of all ages have opportunities to try things out, to see how they work. It’s critical that students develop these habits young and that they’re encouraged. You don’t become a scientist or an engineer by deciding that in 12th grade. It’s a developing process, one that needs preparation, and all the supporting classes in advance of that decision. Fun, engaging, relaxed environments where individuals can explore and interact with others are perfect—that should be what the classroom is like, and increasingly classrooms are becoming more and more like that. These are the kinds of activities that STEM students thrive on, these are the kinds of activities that our students on the spectrum thrive on too.
Robotics is at the heart of many STEM programs and along with coding has become the quintessential STEM activity. Individuals on the spectrum often thrive at it, and it involves a wide range of skills and activities, all of which are helpful to promoting their success. To build a robot takes design, engineering and creative skills, it takes knowledge of electronics to wire the robot, of coding to program the robot. What’s more, the individuals who are doing all this have to be engaged with each other—if I am the programmer, I cannot do my part unless I understand your part, what the robot is supposed to do, how it’s supposed to move, what devices it will have, and so on. So, collaboration among the members of the team is essential, which provides further opportunities to develop the essential human skills of communication, creativity, resilience and determination, all of which are critical for finding and keeping a job. We want students to be proud of what they can do, to have the confidence and self-esteem to trust that what they have to offer is worth offering and they should be seen and heard. We want them to stand shoulder to shoulder with their neurotypical peers, to compete openly and without fear of failure or shame, and they do. They can compete, and they can win!
Moreover, the skills that they develop, both personal and technical, are among the most desirable for any job, given the high demands for technical skills in almost everything we do.
The number of STEM jobs, jobs for which technical expertise and training are necessary, are expected to outperform all jobs by more than 2:1. In fact, the situation is even more extreme because there is an increasing need for technical expertise across all jobs, so it’s not just STEM jobs that are on the rise, but that all positions will require an increasing measure of technical expertise. In the future, familiarity with software applications and hardware devices, data analytics, and making inferences and projections based on the data will be commonplace. In fact, you don’t even have to wait for the future—it’s here already! AI (Artificial Intelligence), Blockchain, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality, cloud computing, and many other technologies are becoming more and more mainstream, and so require a greater degree of understanding by all workers who will have to integrate them. Despite this burgeoning demand for workers with technical expertise, we in the US are falling further behind, with a smaller percentage of our population entering the sciences than many other nations. We are steadily losing our competitive edge.
One of the questions we’ve focused on steadily is what schools can do about this. How can we better prepare our students to be more capable of competing, do well in college, and enter the workforce. The question is particularly acute because STEM is where students on the spectrum often shine, where they have natural skills, so training them in STEM areas not only meets their natural gifts and talents head on, but also makes a contribution to the shortfall in STEM graduates that the country is experiencing and will continue to experience into the future.
Research tells us that most children, particularly girls, have lost their interest in STEM by a very young age. This is despite the fact that they know that they will need technical skills to land the job of their choosing. An Ernst & Young survey in 2018 found that boys 13-17 interested in STEM dropped from 36% in 2017 to 24% in 2018. The share of girls interested in STEM stayed the same at just 11%.
So, a first challenge is to maintain interest in STEM, to make it relevant, and to move beyond the areas of application that most kids already know about like coding, computers and robotics to areas that are less well known, like bioengineering, bioinformatics, machine learning, and astrodynamics. We also need to focus not only on how we make things, on the mechanics of things, but on how the things we make help others, we need to introduce a human dimension, whether we help others through making prosthetics or drugs, or buildings such as hospitals. All of us are more engaged and better motivated when we know why we are doing what we’re doing, when there is a purpose, especially if the outcome is something beyond ourselves.
There are many misconceptions about STEM in the minds of students: It’s too hard (evidently half of students think that). One of the pairs of statistics that I find particularly interesting is that 60% of 9th graders lose interest in STEM by 12th grade, but over 80% of STEM professionals were interested in STEM before high school. Here, then, is the tension that we have to overcome, between the need to keep students interested in STEM so that they’ll go on to pursue it at the very time that their interest seems to be waning. Those who continue in STEM have this enduring interest while the majority of their peers move on to other things. In a similar vein, only a third of girls feel that STEM is a positive force in the world, but 2/3 of women in STEM feel that it does make a positive difference. We need to do more to talk about the positive impact of science, engineering, technology and math, and that strengths in these fields provides a powerful foundation for any career.
There is still another reason for guiding students with autism towards STEM, beyond their own aptitude for it and beyond the country’s need for STEM workers. The top 7 countries producing STEM graduates are all in the East, apart from the US. If you look at the numbers too, you can see just how far we are falling behind. China graduates 5 million in STEM annually, India half that, and the US a mere half a million, the same number as Russia does. There is no other country in the Americas, in Europe or Africa on the list of the top 7. It’s not hard to see how heavily already the balance in technological power has shifted to the East. It is imperative, therefore, if we want to keep our technological edge, our competitive edge, that we produce more STEM graduates, that we encourage our youth to pursue STEM interests. As the chairman of Intel recently said: At present the brightest and best educated minds are here, but we will go wherever they are. That is an ominous prospect.
So, to summarize the central points:
STEM plays to autistic strengths; it taps into their natural abilities and talents and so can turn them into excellences far more rapidly than if they lacked those natural abilities. Second, they can contribute to an area of huge demand for technical expertise locally, nationally and internationally. They would not lack for work and their financial security, which is always a concern, would be on a strong footing. Perhaps most importantly, they would have an opportunity to redress the socio-economic imbalances that have long existed—the underemployment and unemployment, the humiliation and loss of self-esteem at continually being underestimated and overlooked. All of these could be wiped away.