"If you have met one person with autism," the saying goes, "then you have met one person with autism." The incredible variation of autism across the Spectrum is so significant that I sometimes wonder at the usefulness of this single term. Of course, it is this very idea that led to the introduction of the term Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD. People with ASD vary dramatically in terms of their capacity for language, sensory needs, adaptive skills, behavioral challenges, motoric functioning, etc. And just like all of us, people with ASD have unique personalities all their own: likes and dislikes, interests, obsessions, talents, wants, needs, desires, hopes, fears, and beliefs. Except for a few characteristics related to diagnostic criteria, it is nearly impossible to generalize about people with autism.

So, when I am forwarded an article about autism, and when I choose to share it with others, I am always inclined to reflect on the nature of the Spectrum. This week an article appeared in The New York Times about a person with autism who lives in Denmark. This man capitalized on aspects of his personality that, in some contexts, would have been disabling. Some in the Oak Hill community may connect this article to someone they know with ASD. Others may not; this is the nature of the Spectrum.

But I take two important things away from the article. First, I see the incredible power of looking at a person with ASD as someone with strengths, rather than someone with deficits. Here's a generalization I can live with: all of our students have strengths. We need to help them find those strengths, build on them, and help them build a life around them.

Second, the article called to mind an idea that crystallized for me during a lecture with Dr. Peter Mundy (part of  Karen Kaplan's lecture series at MCOE). He proposed that the continuum we call the Autism Spectrum should be regarded as a part of a larger continuum that could be simply be described as the variation of human expression. After all, everyone one of us has different capacities for language, sensory needs, adaptive skills, obsessions, interests, likes, dislikes, hopes, fears, etc. Likewise, we all have challenges and deficits and skills that need work, and we all need help sometimes. This perspective has powerful implications for how we think of the people with ASD in our lives, and the work we do with them.

So take this article for what it is: a story about someone who built a life around his strengths.