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Plans have just been published to assist sufferers from autism to find work more easily. This is an overdue and welcome announcement from government which accepts that autism sufferers have been excluded from the workplace for far too long.

Autism, and its related condition Asperger’s syndrome are characterised by an inability on the part of the sufferer to relate to, and communicate with others. They come across as severely withdrawn and in less enlightened times were assumed to be stupid. In fact many autism victims are highly intelligent, it is just that they cannot communicate the outcomes of their thought processes effectively. Mark Haddon’s best selling novel, The Curious Tale of The Dog In The Night-Time gives a poignant and powerful account of what it is like to be autistic.

But despite their communication difficulties there are many work related tasks at which autistic people excel. They can be highly logical, focused on detail and extremely thorough in their performance. This makes them ideal for computer or numerate work. A Danish company, Specialisterne employs over forty people with autism, testing software and working on other specialist technical tasks.

The proposals to help autism sufferers are just another step in the gradual opening up of the workplace to excluded groups. Not all have health problems. Some have learning difficulties, others have had difficult ,home lives and are socially excluded. There is much more work to be done in bringing excluded groups in from the cold. But today’s announcement is a welcome step.

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Tags: Asperger's, Autism, social exclusion

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 7:05 am and is filed under Workplace Issues . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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