I think one of the worst things schools have done is taken out all of the stuff like art, music, woodworking, sewing, cooking, welding, auto-shop. All these things you can turn into careers. How can you get interested in these careers if you don't try them on a little bit?

Autism's a very big spectrum. At one end of the spectrum, Einstein would probably be labeled autistic, Steve Jobs, half of Silicon Valley, you know, Van Gogh. And at the other end of the spectrum, you got much more severe handicaps where they never learn to speak.

Animals do have emotion. But fear tends to be one of the most primal emotions.

People need to learn how to work, learn how to support themselves. I think it's just fine to be eccentric.

What I've tried to do is combine both my personal experiences with scientific research. I like to cross the divide between the personal world and the scientific world.

Basically when it comes to autistic kids and animals there's kind of three ways that they work, some of them are instant best buddies, they understand a cat, they understand a dog - they're best studies with it, they just know how to communicate with it. Then there's other kids that begin with a little bit of fear of the cat or the dog, but then they begin to like it and then there are other kids where you have a sensory problem - the cat meows and it hurts their ears, so they want to stay away from the cat because you never know when he might meow.

When I was younger, I didn't even realize the way I think visually is different.