Two Programmes on Autism Did anyone else watch them?

I am pleased that there are programmes about Autistic people but I do not have the time to watch all of them.  I do not see why children under sixteen not supposed to watch the programmes on Autism.  It says on the I player do not watch if you are under sixteen.  It is good to educate children about Autism.  When I was a child I knew about mental illness as I visited my cousin in West Park  Mental Hospital.  I also attended the Maudsley Hospital school for about three weeks so I was well educated in mental illness as  a child in real life.

David

Thats a very good point recombined,oddly enough last week I had someone laugh at me because i had not recognised them and had worked with them a few months before, I like to be very punctual, although I cant say I am routine bound, so I would probably say slightly but I must say if anything I do think my partner is 100% on the spectrum lol, hes very routine bound, hates attention, doesnt show emtion or love ect.

Hi MO4B,

I also have a strong family history going back to my great grandfather. The traits are obvious in my father's siblings but none have ever been diagnosed although a couple of them might have benefited from that. The other obvious issue is that the home environment that is created when one of the parents is on the spectrum has considerable influence on the children's upbringing. Do you think that your own upbringing could have been better if your parents knew that this problem existed? Do you think that you are on the spectrum too don't need a diagnosis because you can manage OK?

The males in our family are not very lucky, my father suffers, his mother suffered, I had 2 brothers, 1 died and the other had severe cerabal palsy and now i look at my children and there are problems.

I whave watched that documentary before, im sure it was the same one, because I done the tests on mysons to see how he would think and his thinking was exactly that of an autistic child,which made me feel better as we still have no diagnose.

I watched the Horizon programme by/about Uta Frith and also watched most of the programme about the three autistic guys.

I found both programmes uncomfortable in parts. I did not like watching the boy on the farm with all of his sibs and the mother who, with the best intentions, was intent on treating her son as severely disabled when it wasn't clear to me that he was getting a good upbringing.

uta Frith said, and did, some things that I found surprising. She talked about empathy - I think she must have a different concept of empathy to me. I struggle to know what other people are feeling but I have no problem with being sympathetic if I know someone is suffering. My problem is that I don't detect peoples emotions easily. I was surprised by the marble experiment - to me it is obvious that the person who left the room would look in the place that they had left the marble. I don't know if this "skill" develops later in autistic people but I would have given the non-autistic answer. The triangle animation was odd though. I couldn't see the game of knock knock ginger being played out - so I was autistically baffled by that!.

With regards to employement - there is an Access to Work programme run by the government that can provide assistance to disabled people in gaining and keeping employment. This can include interview training and other assistance.

The programmes show that autistic people are remarkably diverse and hard to understand from non-autistics point of view. My wife found it useful and we will watch it again. Uta clearly knows stuff and can explain things in ways that non-autistics understand.

The difficulty in employing an Autistic person is that they might find it difficult to follow instructions and they would need a lot of extra training at the start of their new job.  Even another Autistic person might not want to employ another Autistic person.  Many men employ a woman secretary so I do not think it is entirely true about always wanting the same kind.  I have not yet watched the employment programme but I know something about it as I have worked a little bit in my life including the House of Commons for six months.  That was about twenty years ago and I was one of the last people to get employed on the three percent quota which has unfortunatly disappeared.  Now disabled people have to apply on their own merrits which might make it diffiucult as they often do not have the right experience.    I was told that at the interview I did not give the right answers to the questions that is why I did not get the job.  I have done very little work so I do not know how to give the right answers.

I am nearly sixty so I am not looking for work any more.

David

Watched the new 'Autistic Me' and the 2014 'Horizon' programme that David mentions, as well as the first of episodes of 'The A Word' and 'Employable Me'. It is good to see some serious productions, so well done BBC. It struck me as strange to see people and characters who are my kind of normal.

As regards employment, there are many obstacles to overcome. I heard one senior manager of a multinational company when addressing the subject of women's careers observations that men tend to hire men, women tend to hire women and people of a particular ethnicity tend to hire others of the same ethnicity. In short, people are most comfortable with people who are like themselves. The problem for any of who appear different is that the people who do the hiring just don't feel comfortable with us, so don't hire us.

Even though I have been in work for most of my life, career advancement has been almost nonexistent. Not only do I make others slightly unconscious due to my Aspergers, I don't do very well with the networking that most people use to move within an organisation. Apparently most people get jobs not because they are qualified, or experienced, but because they know the right people - a tough call for those of us on the spectrum. The very few times I have made any progress has been when a manager has spotted a particular skill/strength that he wanted to cash in on.

Good luck to all of you who are looking for a (new) job. Why not post your success stories so others can follow in your footsteps.