IN MY SHOES: Would The World Be A Better Place Without Autism?
Los Angeles journalist Tom Fields-Meyer, author of "Following Ezra: What One Father Learned About Gumby, Otters, Autism, and Love from His Extraordinary Son," is ambivalent about research aimed at figuring out why autism occurs because figuring out how to mitigate or prevent the condition will also eradicate the unique personalities – and intellectual strengths – of those who have some form of it:
Ezra is verbal, but, at 15, he still tends to talk about the same things over and over: otters, Pixar movies, dog breeds. He doesn't rock or flap his hands much anymore, but his sensory challenges make it difficult to stay in one place, so he paces in math class and during recess while other kids are chatting with friends.
Like many people with autism, he also possesses a remarkable memory. He knows the running times of hundreds of animated films, has mastered the details of several animal encyclopedias and can recall the exact date in 2003 he first heard a woodpecker. Learning a new acquaintance's birthday, Ezra will charm the person by instantaneously announcing which Disney movie premiered on that exact date.
More important, he has remarkable enthusiasm for life, greeting days that are significant to him – the first of the month, for example, or the day of the "Cars 2" premiere – by running around the house before dawn shouting with infectious delight.
When I hear that, I wonder: Would we really want a world without such people? Or without biologists with underdeveloped social skills who can focus obsessively on a particular breed of newt? Or without certain brilliant software engineers who might not make great dinner party guests? (The ultimate irony is that the kind of person who has the obsessive focus to isolate the combination of factors that cause autism might just have a touch of it himself.) …
Ezra without the Pixar fixation, without the mental catalog of animal kingdom trivia, would not be Ezra. What would life in our house be like without a 15-year-old who wakes up once a month elated just because he gets to turn a new page on the calendar?
Editorial Note: For more information on companies that seek to hire people with Asperger’s Syndrome and autism for specialized tasks that make use of their particular talents click here and here.
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