When I was a child, I was good at drawing and art and terrible at algebra.  My parents encouraged my ability in art and I used my ability to visualize in my career designing livestock facilities.  People on the autism/Asperger spectrum have uneven skills.  They are often good at one type of learning and bad at another.  Educators need to work on building up the area of strength.  There is often too much emphasis on deficits.  The most successful individuals developed their areas of strength.  I have observed that there are three different cognitive patterns in autism/Asperger’s:

1. Visual thinkers like me.  I think in photo realistic pictures. Suitable careers would be graphic   design, industrial design, or animation. The area of weakness is algebra.  Some visual thinkers can do geometry and trigonometry.

2. Pattern thinkers have more abstract visual thinking.  They are able to see patterns and relationships between numbers.  Good careers would be engineering, math or computer programming.  Reading is often a weak area.

3. Word thinkers who know every fact about their favorite subject.  They are not visual thinkers and they are often good at journalism and technical writing.

Teachers and parents need to work with people on the autism/Asperger spectrum to develop their strengths.  Additional information may be found in my books:  Thinking in Pictures and Developing Talents.

Teachers and parents need to work on helping the individual to develop skills that can be turned into good careers.  I am a visual thinker and my ability in art was encouraged.  I use my visual thinking skill in my work designing equipment.  Another child may be good at math.  He may be able to do advanced math, but need special education in  reading.  A big mistake is to put too much emphasis on the deficits and not enough emphasis in building up the area of strength.