Asperger's Syndrome

Many highly creative students have been labeled with an assortment of labels ranging from autism, Asperger's syndrome, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and dyslexia, to learning disabled. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fourth edition, used by psychiatrists and psychologists to identify disorders, requires that people have at least normal intellectual functioning, impairments of social perceptions and skills, and repetitive behaviors or obsessive interests and thoughts. The mildest of the autism spectrum disorders, Asperger's syndrome, often may simply be perceived as intellectuality and eccentricity. Most creative, intellectual, quirky students can be successful with appropriate guidance, education, and mentoring. One brilliant student with Asperger's will enter and stay in a good career because of good mentoring, but another, more neglected Asperger's student may end up depressed or in a dead-end job that he or she hates.

Many of the successful students had some formal instruction in career-related skills either in late childhood or during their teens. Their obsessive interests can be channeled into educational projects. For example, a child's interest in cars can be used as a motivator for all kinds of learning. Reading about cars or doing math problems involving cars channels an obsession into productive learning.

Discussions with many parents, teachers, and successful creative people indicate that during their formative years they were mentored. Many successful computer programmers who have Asperger's syndrome were taught programming by their parents—they were apprenticed into the field by their parents. In other cases, a professor took an interest in a student, or a friend of the family taught the individual. The best career paths emerge when there is formal instruction in career-related subjects. A mentor needs to “light the fuse” to get career-related learning started. Once this creative spark is ignited, a student will often pursue study on his or her own, but in many cases some formal instruction is needed to get the student started. Otherwise these quirky, creative students may go down the wrong path into trouble or into nonproductive activities such as nonstop video playing.

One example of a student who benefited from mentoring is Temple Grandin. When Grandin was 3 years old, she had all of the symptoms of autism, such as no speech, no eye contact, many tantrums, and hours of solitary play. Today she is a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and a designer of livestock handling equipment. Half of the cattle in the United States and Canada are handled in equipment she designed. She was mentored by a great science teacher who motivated her to study with the goal of becoming a scientist.