What Are Career Paths In Which Adults With Autism Are Often Successful?

Oct. 23, 2008 -- Question: What are career paths in which adults with autism are often successful?

Answer: Because the disability has such a wide spectrum, we find that almost any and every job avenue out there is open to someone with autism. Yes, there are areas that our folks tend to do better in, and they tend to be better in areas that have some predictability to them, have fact-based or science-based foundation to them -- things like engineering and computing and technology, in the phone service, electronics -- but also some repetition to them. We have a wide variety of skill levels in the world of autism and so any job that is out there in the community can be and should be available for someone with this disability.

Some of our folks do go into the military. Oftentimes they don't do very well. Some do, however, perform very well in the military, some that have Asperger's syndrome or high-functioning autism. But once they get into the levels that have some very hard and fast decision making and leadership abilities, we tend to see our folks struggling in those areas. So sometimes the military works, sometimes it does not work for them.