Social thinking skills must be directly taught to children and adults with ASD. Doing so opens doors of social understandings in all areas of life.

The most important thing people did for me was to expose me to new things.

I was nonverbal until I was four years old. Back in the 50s, I was the kind of kid they used to just put away in an institution. But then you get the milder autism where there's no speech delay, but they're socially awkward. Those kids were around when I was a child. They were just called geeks and nerds.

Animals make us Human.

In an ideal world the scientist should find a method to prevent the most severe forms of autism but allow the milder forms to survive. After all, the really social people did not invent the first stone spear. It was probably invented by an Aspie who chipped away at rocks while the other people socialized around the campfire. Without autism traits we might still be living in caves.

I look at the successful people that have, you know, high functioning autism and Asperger's, they're ones where maybe the parents were in the computer industry and they just taught the kids programming at, you know, age eight and nine and they just went on into the industry with their parents.

we raise them for us; that means we owe them some respect. nature is creul but we dont have to be. i wouldnt want to have my guts ripped out by a lion. i'd much rather die in a slaughter house if it were done right.