Silicon Valley has a New Secret Weapon

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a serious neurodevelopmental disorder that impairs an individual’s ability to communicate and interact with others effectively. It also includes having restricted, repetitive behaviors and interests, and inability to perform a lot of activities. These problems cause a serious deficiency in performing social, occupational and other types of operations.

While this condition may seem like a catastrophe for most people, for people living with autism spectrum disorder, this can serve as a blessing in disguise. Recently, several big companies are starting to realize the potential abilities of people living with autism spectrum disorder. These include looking at data, dealing with mathematical concepts, attention to detail, the ability to focus over long periods of time, and looking at large bodies of information and spotting anomalies.

These abilities and dedicated skills possessed by these victims of the Autism spectrum disorder are a needed essential for successfully piloting the affairs of a company. Many employers are now recognizing this fact and are seeking to employ people with Autism Spectrum Disorder to occupy major roles, as they see them as a major fit for their company. Recently, Microsoft launched a hiring program that will give room for more people with autism to be employed. According to Corporate vice president for operations, Mary Ellen Smith, people living with Autism have “mad skills”. According to her, by adjusting their hiring practices, and recruiting people with autism spectrum disorder, they are hiring a group of highly talented individuals who will help them do great things at Microsoft.

As we step more into the 21st century, more companies are opting to leverage the incredible talents of autism patients to help them perform some specific tasks that are sometimes difficult for normal people to accomplish. Some of these tasks include software engineering, development of new products, building patent designs and formulation of ideas for companies.

People with autism spectrum disorder offer several advantages to employers. They excel in logical reasoning and pattern recognition. They can help people in tiding over crises by memorizing emergency procedures. In addition, they are very meticulous regarding details and can detect even minor discrepancies. These traits are what every company wants, and that signifies why people living with autism spectrum disorder have been shown the green light as of late.

Having a team that is comprised of people living with autism spectrum disorder can be an edge for a business in the 21st century. According to ULTRA Testing -a technology startup that provides quality assurance services, autism is a competitive advantage. This firm claims that 75% of its employees have autism spectrum disorder. According to the company’s co-founder, having a large number of people suffering from autism as part of their team gives them a competitive advantage, and it has helped them produce better results than IT heavyweights like IBM.

People living with Autism spectrum disorder are now being given a chance to be an integral part of a business. Not only are they getting good jobs, but they are also occupying major roles in businesses. This signifies a major breakthrough for them. Current statistics show that 58% of young adults living with autism spectrum disorder are unemployed. However, with many companies now recognizing their unique abilities and the importance of having them as members of their staff, this figure is set to reduce in the coming years.

This is a good thing for people living with Autism. Not only will it help them reduce the low self-esteem that comes with not being able to socialize and communicate effectively, but it will also help them recognize and focus on building their potentials.

In conclusion, people living with autism spectrum disorder do not have to be victimized and sidelined from major activities in life. They deserve to be loved, coached and encouraged to develop their innate potentials. They deserve to be recognized and given major opportunities to pilot important affairs in companies. Thankfully, with the growing desire to recruit people with special abilities by companies, they are now being granted opportunities and in the coming years, they will get more.

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