Girls, Boys And Autism

Dave Spicer had never thought of himself as autistic until 1994, when his 8-year-old --son, Andrew, got a formal diagnosis and he was diagnosed too. Spicer, then 46, was a computer programmer and system designer, but his social ineptitude had cost him two marriages and blighted his career. He recalls leaving business meetings thinking all had gone well, only to discover that he had annoyed or offended people. "A social situation is like a square dance where the caller is speaking Swahili," he says. "There will be a cue and I won't get it, and I'll stumble into people." Spicer's son is now thriving in a mainstream high school after several years of special education, and Spicer himself has learned to play to his strengths. He has gone back to college. He socializes on his own terms, and doesn't berate himself for being different. "My favorite story about autism is 'The Emperor's New Clothes'," he says. "The boy didn't understand social norms, but he spoke the truth. I think society needs us."

Gifted geeks aren't the only ones saying that. Juhrs, the social-service organizer, has found that even profoundly autistic adults are often highly employable. "If they're matched properly with work they enjoy," she says, "they can do as well or better than people who aren't disabled." In seeking out jobs for her clients, Juhrs never appeals to employers for charity. She asks if there are jobs they've had trouble filling. As it turns out, the Type S tasks that her people thrive on--inspecting garments, coding inventory, assembling components for the fuses on nuclear submarines--are often the same ones that ordinary people can't stand. "Once our folks get into going to work, they don't want to miss a day," she says. "We have to talk them into holidays."

Tapping these strengths makes obvious sense, but the deficits associated with autism are just as real. Are people like Spicer destined to fail in love and the workplace, or can their social handicaps be conquered? Unlike systemizing, empathy involves snap, intuitive judgments that you can't always make by following a recipe. "Most people learn to interact socially just by observation," says Stephen Shore, a mildly autistic Boston University doctoral student who heads the Asperger's Association of New England. "People on the autistic spectrum regard things as a set of rules. We have to figure them out or be taught." Like Tom Hanks in "Big," Shore thought sleepover the first time a woman invited him to spend the night. But through painstaking study and practice, he has developed a good enough social repertoire to sustain a career and a 13-year marriage.

Was Shore just lucky, or is there a lesson to be drawn from his experience? Can people on the autistic spectrum learn to compensate for their lack of natural empathizing ability? The answer depends on the person and the condition. Siegel estimates that 25 percent of classically autistic children respond to intensive interventions and that 7 percent do well enough to attend mainstream schools and lead normal lives. The response rates are much higher among mildly affected kids, and experts agree that early intervention is the key to success. "The earlier you can get into a treatment program," says Andy Shih of the National Alliance for Autism Research, "the better the prognosis."

The programs go by different names--applied behavioral analysis, discreet trial training, pivotal response treatment--but most of them use simple conditioning exercises to open lines of communication. "With an average child, you can point to something red and ask what color it is," says psychologist Robert Koegel of the University of California, Santa Barbara. "Autistic kids are screaming, trying to get out of it. But what if they love M&Ms? When we ask which one is red, they take a red one. They're highly motivated." Naming colors is simpler than decoding social signals, but they, too, can be mastered by unconventional means. Baron-Cohen's team has developed an interactive computer program that pairs 418 emotions with distinct facial expressions. Preliminary studies suggest that anyone, autistic or not, can develop a better eye for flattery, boredom or scorn simply by practicing for 10 weeks with these electronic flashcards.

As fate would have it, some of the best natural readers of feelings and faces are themselves profoundly disabled. People with a rare genetic disorder called Williams syndrome are often severely retarded. Yet they're hypersocial, highly verbal and often deeply empathetic. "In some ways," says research psychologist Teresa Doyle of the Salk Institute, "Williams syndrome is almost an opposite of autism." Ten-year-old A. J. Arciniega will never play Bop It Extreme the way Andrew Bacalao does, let alone dismantle a radio. But he shakes hands eagerly when greeted by a NEWSWEEK correspondent, and gladly engages in conversation, asking about the visitor's children and their interests. Settling in with a wordless picture book, he pages through the story of a boy and a dog who lose their frog and set out to find him. There is no plot in A.J.'s telling, but his feeling for the characters is irrepressible. "Ron! Ron! Where are you?" he exclaims when the boy is shown calling for his frog. " 'Woof! Woof!' the dog moans." Neither Andrew nor A.J. is in for an easy life--as Baron-Cohen might say, things are simpler in the middle of the E-S spectrum. But the world will be richer for both of them.

WITH ANNE UNDERWOOD, ANDREW MURR, KAREN SPRINGEN AND SARAH SENNOTT

© 2003