Embracing neurodiversity

With guidance and encouragement, people with autism can achieve their fullest potential at work.

SUPPORT and encouragement from fellow colleagues is important to enable people with Asperger Syndrome Disorder (ASD) to ease into their work environment.

Global and Regional Asperger Syndrome Partnership (Grasp) founder and executive director Michael J. Carley says with motivation and guidance, these individuals can slowly achieve financial independence and contribute to society.

ASD is one of the subtypes of autism under the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. Affected children and adults have difficulty with social interactions and have a restricted range of interests and/or repetitive behaviours.

Autism is not an illness that can be cured. It is a lifelong condition, and those with autism usually require lifelong care.

“It is important to intergrate people with autism and ASD into the workplace. Allow them to mingle with others. Teach them how to learn social rules and initiate them into the corporate culture. It also teaches them to develop social skills and confidence,” says Carley, the keynote speaker at Autism Initiative Malaysia’s (AIM) autism symposium, Transitioning To Further Education and Employment, held here recently.

The event was organised to highlight the issue of employment, one of the many challenges faced by individuals with autism as they reach adulthood. The symposium also focused on how people with autism can achieve their full potential in a conducive learning environment.

Carley says many individuals with ASD are high-functioning and good with numbers while others are visual thinkers.

Many have completed their tertiary education; some have even gone on to obtain their PhD.

Notable figures with ASD include Dr Temple Grandin, professor in animal sciences, and anthropologist Dr Dawn Princes-Hughes.

Carley, who has ASD, was only diagnosed at 32, together with his then four-year-old son. As he was not diagnosed earlier, Carley struggled socially in school. He angered teachers, and barely passed each succeeding grade. In middle school, he became a sort of mascot for some of his school’s most notorious juvenile delinquents.

Though troubled, Carley was hardworking. He held various odd jobs, from being a jewellery polisher to a prep cook to a music librarian.

In 1986, he graduated with an arts degree from Hampshire College and went on to complete his Masters in Fine Arts from Columbia University in 1989.

During the Gulf War in 1990, he worked with non-profit organisation Veterans for Peace (VFP), and was stationed in Cuba and Bosnia. Seven years later, he became VFP’s United Nations representative.

Carley, 54, says people with ASD who has paper qualification can demonstrate above-average skills in areas like concentration, resourcefulness and attention to detail. They are also honest, hardworking and committed.

“Students with ASD have the ability to visualise things in detail. Very often,

they have visual learning skills or are inclined towards mathematical problem solving skills. When these individuals are hired for the job, they can showcase their analytical strengths to the company’s benefit,” says Carley.

“With support and a conducive learning environment, individuals with ASD can thrive and achieve their fullest potential. They must have the right qualification to do the job.” says Carley.

Autism and its associated behaviours have been estimated to occur in as many as 1 in 68 newborns. About 9,000 children in Malaysia are born with autism each year.

Article 27 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities states that people with disabilities have a right to work on an equal basis with others.

In 2003, he founded Grasp with the mission to spread awareness on autism and how workplaces can benefit with people with ASD.

Since then, he has authored Asperger’s From the Inside Out: A Supportive and Practical Guide for Anyone with Asperger’s Syndrome and Unemployed on the Autism Spectrum.

He is also the columnist at Huffington Post, with a column called Autism Without Fear.

For more details, go to grasp.org or www.facebook.com/Autism-InitiativesMalaysia

Carley (left) wants employers to harness the skills and potential of people with ASD as they have strengths that are often overlooked. (Right) Supportive colleagues and an enabling work environment are crucial in helping individuals with autism adapt...