EDUCATION FOR THE AUTISTIC SPECTRUM.

EDUCATION FOR THE AUTISTIC SPECTRUM. There is a wide variation of individuals along the autistic spectrum. Many of them have remarkable mental abilities so that academic education is not much different for them than it is for others. I quoted Tyler Cowen here: “[T]here is a lot more autism in higher education than most of us realize.” Donald Triplett majored in French at an excellent college (Millsaps College). John Donvan and Caren Zucker (citing Dr. Peter Gerhardt) stress the importance of teaching people with autism life skills that we take for granted: “keeping track of money, asking for directions and then following them, wearing clean clothes, navigating public transport, recognizing a dangerous person, and—of extreme difficulty for most—looking a job interviewer in the eye.” I quoted Temple Grandin here that “The thing about being autistic is that you gradually get less and less autistic…because you keep learning, you keep learning how to behave.” What is being suggested is formal education in behavior cues.