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88–833PDF 2014

THE GLOBAL CHALLENGE OF AUTISM

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, 

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND 

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JULY 24, 2014

Serial No. 113–205

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

PAUL COOK, California 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

SEAN DUFFY, Wisconsin 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JUAN VARGAS, California 

BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

KAREN BASS, California 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

AMI BERA, California 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Mr. Jose H. Velasco, vice president of product management and head of 

Autism at Work Initiative, SAP .......................................................................... 5

Mr. Thorkil Sonne, founder and chairman, Specialisterne .................................. 19

Ms. Theresa Hussman, board member, Autism Society ....................................... 28

Mr. Michael Rosanoff, associate director, Public Health Research, Autism 

Speaks ................................................................................................................... 34

Mr. Ron Suskind, author ......................................................................................... 43

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Mr. Jose H. Velasco: Prepared statement .............................................................. 8

Mr. Thorkil Sonne: Prepared statement ................................................................ 21

Ms. Theresa Hussman: Prepared statement ......................................................... 31

Mr. Michael Rosanoff: Prepared statement ........................................................... 39

Mr. Ron Suskind: Prepared statement .................................................................. 51

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 70

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 71

(1)

THE GLOBAL CHALLENGE OF AUTISM 

THURSDAY, JULY 24, 2014

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 o’clock p.m., in 

room 2200, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. 

Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SMITH. The subcommittee will come to order, and good afternoon to everybody. 

The global incidence of autism is steadily increasing. About one 

in 68 children have been identified with autism spectrum disorder, 

or ASD, according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network. 

ASD is reported to occur in all racial, ethnic and social economic 

groups, but is almost five times more common among boys, 1 in 42, 

than among girls, 1 in 189. 

Studies in Asia, Europe, and North America have identified individuals with ASD, with an average of about 1 percent of the population. The prevalence of autism in Africa is unknown, but there 

is no reason to believe that it is any different, it might even be 

worse, than other parts of the world. 

I note parenthetically that Greg Simpkins and I were in Nigeria 

twice in the last year, but about 10 years ago I was there for a conference on combatting sex trafficking, something I have worked on 

for many, many years and after the speech, a man came up and 

said, what are you doing about autism in Nigeria? And I said, well, 

nothing. And we have become good friends ever since. He has 

worked with the Autism Society of America ever since. He said 

there are at least 1 million children in Nigeria who are dealing 

with autism, it is probably closer to 2 million, and not dealing with 

it well because they are so resource lacking. A new study recently found that each case of autism costs $2.4 

million over a lifetime, including the expense of special education 

and lost productivity for their parents. Meanwhile, 85 percent of 

autistic adults are jobless or underemployed. It is therefore imperative that people with ASD are empowered to be self-sufficient so 

they can not only earn money to meet their own needs, but they 

also can utilize their very special talents that they possess to contribute to society at large. This hearing will examine some innovative strategies to achieve that important goal. 

2

SAP, a global software company, is working to rectify this problem. SAP partnered with Thorkil Sonne, CEO and founder of 

Specialisterne, to develop the highly successful SAP Autism at 

Work program. Mr. Sonne, with his 17-year-old son Lars, who is 

autistic, realized that while those with autism might lack the social 

skills recruiters are looking for, they possess many attributes high 

on their radar, as well, intelligence and memory, the ability to see 

patterns, and attention to detail especially on repetitive tasks. 

He reasoned that it would be phenomenal if we could use skills 

like we see among the autism community in software testing, data 

analysis and quality controls. He says that there is no reason why 

we should leave these people unemployed when they have so much 

talent and there are so many vacant jobs in the high-tech sector. 

SAP and Mr. Sonne will provide further details of their extraordinary program here today. 

Theresa Hussman of the Autism Society put it, I think, very well, 

in work, at school and in the community, people with autism were 

often faced with segregation, low expectations, impoverished conditions and denial of opportunity that a society committed to civil 

rights should find unacceptable. 

Today, if you are an adult living with autism, you will likely be 

unemployed or vastly underemployed living well below the poverty 

line and denied access to affordable housing and so much more. 

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind will testify in part 

about the success with his affinity approach. And he points out in 

his testimony that for every visible deficit, there is an equal and 

opposing strength. This population is just like the rest of us only 

less so and more so. The question increasingly is not if these moreso qualities exist, but where. 

Autism used to be described as a disorder characterized by 

delays or abnormal functioning through the age of 3 in social interaction, communication, or restricted, repetitive and stereotyped 

patterns of behavior, interests and activities. More recently, behavioral scientists describe a range of such behavior, now referred to 

as autism spectrum disorder, which includes a more high-functioning version known as Asperger syndrome. 

It is medically possible to diagnosis somebody with ASD as early 

as 18 months or even younger, and a reliable diagnosis can be 

made by the age of 2. However, symptoms might not present themselves until later in life. Those with some form of autism may 

never be diagnosed at all. 

This has led to a debate over famous people, productive people, 

often considered geniuses, who appear to have symptoms of autism, 

especially Asperger syndrome. In the April 3, 2003, issue of the 

New Scientist magazine writer Hazel Muir revealed the debate 

over whether geniuses like Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton had 

Asperger syndrome. Simon Baron-Cohen, an autism expert based 

at Cambridge, and Oxford University, mathematician, Ioan James, 

speculated that Newton, the noted English physicist and mathematician, exhibited Asperger traits such as hardly speaking, forgetting to eat, and giving scheduled lectures even to an empty room. 

Einstein, the German physicist, was said to have obsessively repeated sentences until he was 7 years old and was notoriously confusing as a lecturer. Both were highly productive scientists, perVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:37 Oct 14, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\072414\88833 SHIRL
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haps because of the kind of focus ASD produces rather than in 

spite of it. 

On February 2, 2005, a report by Sue Herera of CNBC presented 

an interview with 2002 Nobel laureate, Vernon L. Smith, in which 

he spoke in the way which autism has allowed him to excel. ‘‘I can 

switch out and go into a concentrated mode and the world is completely shut out,’’ Smith is quoted as saying. ‘‘If I am writing something, nothing else exists.’’ During the interview, Smith who won 

the Nobel Prize for inventing the field of experimental economics, 

admitted that he sometimes is not there in social situations. He 

said that teaching had forced him to become more social, but it was 

only because he was talking about issues on which he was already 

focused. 

I raise the issue of intelligence and functionality because we too 

often see people with ASD as victims who must be cared for when 

the focus their condition produces may only allow them to be highly 

successful in certain endeavors. When we begin to look at people 

with ASD in this light, we can better see how they can be enabled 

to contribute to society. It just requires understanding of their potential as well as their limitations. 

Many fields involving mathematics and science would allow for 

the intense focus exhibited by people with ASD. Think of the fields 

of analysis, intelligence, actuary science, and the positions requiring what we commonly call number crunching. The ability to analyze data and see patterns most people would not recognize would 

be invaluable in analytical jobs. 

As Nobel laureate Vernon Smith said, his disconnection from social relationships enabled him to think outside the box, as it were, 

without concern for violating social norms. He found his condition 

to be an advantage in enabling greater creativity. In our increasingly technical world, people with ASD actually are becoming more 

valuable, if we can help them overcome social disconnection and 

allow them to find fields in which what we thought was their disability is actually an advantage. 

We hope today’s hearing can be instructive in at least initiating 

change and perspective on what people with ASD can do to help 

themselves and make a contribution to society as a whole. We must 

not continue to waste the talents of people who could make their 

lives and ours much better. 

Finally, I would like to welcome an amazing group of individuals 

who have and are making an historic difference in the lives of people on the spectrum. As Michael Rosanoff of Autism Speaks puts 

it in his testimony, ‘‘Our mission at Autism Speaks is to change the 

future for all who struggle with autism spectrum disorders.’’ Each 

of you, on this expert panel, are already doing that, and I thank 

you as chair of this subcommittee. 

I would like to now yield to my friend and colleague, chairman 

of the Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies Subcommittee of the Committee on Homeland Security, 

Pat Meehan from Pennsylvania. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Let me thank you, chairman, and let me thank you 

for your long association and leadership with this issue, and I 

think you have so importantly pointed out that this is not just a 

growing issue here at home, but an issue with global implications. 

4

And while we focus largely on the impact that this has on families and children here in the United States, we appreciate that as 

we continue to struggle for a better understanding of what may 

cause autism, a better understanding of what we may be able to 

do to more effectively assist and treat those who are on the spectrum in different capacities, an appreciation for what may be happening in other parts of the world will be important and vital to 

our understanding of the kind of information that will help us perhaps make progress, inroads, toward cures and otherwise. 

And just as importantly, the attention you are paying to things 

that are happening around the world but here in this country with 

what is becoming more and more prevalent, and this is why I am 

so grateful and intrigued by today’s hearing. As we see this dramatic growth in diagnoses and in the number, particularly of boys, 

that are associated with this, by its very implication, we are seeing 

more and more who are ageing out of the support services that 

have been made available by virtue of the state’s responsibility to 

provide an appropriate education. 

And we are finding parents who were now dealing with children 

who are now young adults and beginning to try to transition into 

a life of adulthood, oftentimes parents in the later part of their 

lives dealing with huge new struggles. But one of the bright spots 

has been that with the progress that has been made, we have been 

able to see the capacity for those with autism at various points on 

the spectrum to be able to transition effectively into meaningful 

lives, up to and including meaningful contributions in the workforce, and as you will point out, in some cases, remarkably superior 

capacities to contribute to the workforce with special skills that 

they bring. 

And I know we will be exploring more of that with the testimony, 

and I am going to be looking forward to hearing not only the experiences, the positives and the challenges as we look, I think, to continue to address this growing segment which include those who are 

ageing out of the support systems and will now be looking to begin 

a life of independence. 

We need to be able to look for every opportunity that we can to 

usher that support along. I thank you for your foresight. I thank 

you for your leadership on this issue here in the Congress and on 

behalf of all of those with autism across our Nation. 

I am very proud to have the opportunity to be here with you 

today, and I want to thank you for not only this occasion but holding a hearing on this fundamentally important topic. I am grateful 

for your leadership on the autism issues, and I am honored to have 

the chance to highlight some of the great work that is being done 

by a company, that is a global company, but headquartered in my 

district in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. 

And it is my privilege to introduce Mr. Jose Velasco. He is the 

Vice President of Project Management and the head of the Autism 

at Work Initiative at SAP, Incorporated. Mr. Velasco has held a 

number of positions since joining SAP in 1998, and before that 

founded a software company and consulted for Fortune 500 companies. He is also the proud father of two young adults in the autism 

spectrum. I am delighted to have the honor of introducing him to 

the members of the subcommittee. 

5

Mr. SMITH. Next on the list is Mr. Thorkil Sonne, who is the 

founder and chairman of the Specialisterne and Specialist People 

Foundation with the goal of enabling 1 million jobs for people with 

autism and similar challenges. He first became involved in autism 

when his son Lars was diagnosed with infantile autism in 1999. He 

became active in the Danish Autism Society eventually leaving his 

position at an IT startup company to establish Specialisterne in 

2003. Mr. Sonne is now based in the United States where he is 

driving the expansion of that Specialisterne model with a goal, as 

I said in my opening, of enabling 100,000 jobs for people with autism and similar challenges. 

We will then hear from Ms. Theresa Hussman, who is a board 

member of the Autism Society and a director of the Hussman Institute for Autism, a research institute established to improve the 

lives of individuals with autism and their families. She is also the 

project coordinator for the Hussman Foundation in this capacity. 

She conducts the review and processing of grants, coordinates and 

attends status meetings on existing and potential grants and partnerships, and represents the foundation at charitable events. Ms. 

Hussman is a parent of a young adult son with autism, and in 

2013 was appointed as an advisory member of the Howard County 

Transition Council for Youth with Disabilities. 

We will then hear from Mr. Michael Rosanoff who is a member 

of the Autism Speaks science team and manages the organization’s 

epidemiology and public health research projects focused on understanding the prevalence and the causes of autism. Since joining the 

organization in 2007, he has been part of the development team of 

the Global Autism Public Health Initiative, an effort designed to 

increase awareness of autism and improve access to services 

through the collection of public health data and training of providers worldwide. Mr. Rosanoff is also a member of Autism Speaks’ 

grants division, helping oversee the organizations grants giving 

process for autism research which has committed over $200 million 

to date. 

We will then hear from Mr. Ron Suskind, who is a Pulitzer 

Prize-winning American journalist and best-selling author. He was 

the senior national affairs writer for the Wall Street Journal from 

1993 to 2000 and has published many books, and most recently his 

memoir, ‘‘Life Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes and Autism,’’ 

which explores his own son’s own struggle with autism. 

Since the book’s publication, Ron has traveled the country as an 

autism expert speaking to audiences at the United Nations, the 

NIH, University of Chicago and Harvard and, of course, the House 

of Representatives. He is currently senior fellow at the Center for 

Ethics at Harvard University. 

So if all of you could please come and provide your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF MR. JOSE H. VELASCO, VICE PRESIDENT OF 

PRODUCT MANAGEMENT AND HEAD OF AUTISM AT WORK 

INITIATIVE, SAP 

Mr. VELASCO. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, I 

submit a copy of my written statement for the record, if you allow 

me to summarize it. 

6

Mr. SMITH. Sure. Without objection, all of your longer versions 

and any materials you would like to be made are part of the record 

is so ordered. 

Mr. VELASCO. Thank you. SAP would like to thank you for your 

leadership and for providing us the opportunity to share our views 

on autism and its global impact. 

My name is Jose Velasco. I am head of the SAP Autism at Work 

initiative in the United States. As you may know, SAP is a global 

leader in enterprise software with more than 67,000 employees providing business solutions for over 250,000 customers in more than 

130 countries. 

SAP systems are at the core of large parts of global IT, powering 

more than 65 percent of the transactions that make up the world’s 

gross domestic product, or GDP. With the current estimate of 1 in 

68 children affected by autism, and estimated unemployment rate 

of 70 to 80 percent and an annual cost to the United States in the 

range of $175 billion to $196 billion, SAP recognizes the magnitude 

of the emotional and financial impact that autism has in communities around the world. 

SAP also recognizes that there is a real opportunity to leverage 

the skills of people with autism in the workplace, specifically based 

on our experience in the technology sector where some of the skills 

traditionally found in people with autism have a strong affinity 

with the capabilities needed by companies in our line of business. 

SAP also believes that the cornerstone element of innovation is 

the diversity and perspectives of those who participate in the creative process, including those with autism. In support of these 

views and in support of SAP’s mission to help run the world better 

and improve people’s lives, SAP, in partnership with 

Specialisterne, announced in May 2013 the inception of the global 

Autism at Work initiative, a unique effort to train people with autism worldwide with the purpose of providing meaningful and rewarding employment opportunities in core functions of our company such as software development, software testing, customer 

support, and internal IT functions at SAP, among other positions. 

SAP’s objective is that by the year 2020, 1 percent of its workforce will be represented by people in the autism spectrum, roughly, 650 positions based on SAP’s current global workforce of about 

65,000 employees. Since this announcement, SAP has successfully 

implemented pilot programs in India, Ireland, Germany, Canada, 

and the United States and is in the early planning stages of a pilot 

program in Brazil. 

SAP is also evaluating the implementation of pilot programs in 

other locations that may include China, France, Bulgaria, and 

South Africa. It is expected that at the end of 2014, SAP will count 

approximately 55 colleagues with autism worldwide, and that by 

the end of 2015 the number will increase to more than 150. 

SAP has executed this vision globally with Specialisterne and locally in the United States in cooperation with Department of Rehabilitation of the State of California, the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation of the State of Pennsylvania, and their service providers 

ExpandAbility and the Arc of Philadelphia. SAP has leveraged the 

strength of its partners to create a new, simple, and sustainable 

process to accommodate our new colleagues. Processes such as nonVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:37 Oct 14, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\072414\88833 SHIRL
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traditional interviewing methods, preemployment training, on-thejob coaching and SAP personnel autism awareness training. 

Chairman Smith, the ultimate goal of diversity and the Autism 

at Work program is to provide and attract the best possible talent 

to our company no matter what this talent looks like. We hire our 

new colleagues in spite of autism. As in spite of the challenges associated with this condition, these new colleagues have arrived at 

our door, displaying resiliency, loyalty, dedication and, most importantly, a burning desire to work. 

We also hire people because of autism, as we are able to leverage 

the innate abilities oftentimes associated with the condition, including a gifted memory; a natural ability to recognize patterns 

and deviations in systems or data, which is very much in scope for 

us; and the ability to concentrate and persevere on tasks over a 

long period of time while remaining attentive to the smallest details. 

We have a long journey ahead of us with many things to discover, but we feel confident that with the help of our partners we 

will be able to continue to leverage the talents and skills of people 

with autism. We also feel very confident that soon more companies 

will have similar programs. SAP has been approached by more 

than 15 companies interested in understanding how our program 

was conceptualized and implemented. 

On behalf of SAP’s diversity and inclusion office, our new colleagues with autism mainly, and on behalf of the SAP employees 

who have made this initiative possible, we would like to thank you 

once more for this opportunity to share our experience. 

On behalf of the many families like mine who are touched by autism, thank you for your leadership and for your attention. I would 

be more than happy to take any questions that you may have. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Velasco, thank you very much for your testimony 

and your leadership. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Velasco follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. I would like to now yield to Mr. Sonne. 

STATEMENT OF MR. THORKIL SONNE, FOUNDER AND 

CHAIRMAN, SPECIALISTERNE 

Mr. SONNE. Thank you, Chairman Smith, for your leadership in 

this area and thanks for the opportunity to address the global autism challenge here. I have prepared a written statement which I 

ask to enter into the record. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, without objection, it is part of the record. 

Mr. SONNE. Thank you. 

So my messages is here, if we take a global job approach to the 

autism challenge, we can actually unlock a lot of hope, action and 

impact in the U.S. and globally, and we can create value for all the 

stakeholders in our society. 

My background is as a father of a young man with autism, as 

a social entrepreneur, as a businessman, and as a former chair of 

a local branch of Autism Denmark. I founded Specialisterne 10 

years ago to train, assess, educate and employ people with autism, 

and I am happy to be an American resident now since August of 

last year, to lead the activities in the U.S. 

Parents whose sons or daughters have autism are, in my eyes, 

part of a global family. That goes beyond borders, culture, economy, 

tradition. We share very much the same destiny. We have gone 

through the same emotions, and I have been contacted by parents 

of kids with autism in about 90 countries, and they have asked me 

to help make a change in their nation and when parents with autism make contact with me, I cannot say no. I can say, be patient. 

We will find a way. We will get there. 

Many families are stuck in their own struggle of concern, despair, and fights. All are driven of the fear of what will happen to 

our loved ones when we are not their to fight their battles anymore. As long as the parents are able, we will fight the battles, but 

at some point in time, we won’t have these resources anymore. But 

what if we can give these families a hope that there will be jobs. 

There will be employers who will respect that people are different 

and appreciate that talent comes in different shapes. 

What if employers are willing to accommodate a working environment where the individual can excel even if they have autism? 

Well, today you heard from a great example of such an employer, 

SAP. So I think the question is, how can we as a global family, as 

global stakeholders, help companies like SAP who want to get access to talented people with autism around the world? 

I founded Specialisterne as a social enterprise, to solve a social 

challenge with a business model. We now have 10 years experience 

in unfolding talent among people with autism and put these talents 

to good use when we can match the individual’s comfort zone with 

the work zone. The goal is 1 million jobs, 100,000 in the U.S., another 100,000 in Africa. What we learn in the U.S. through partnerships with businesses, with NGOs that work with people with 

disabilities, we need to bring to Africa and all continents. 

In Africa, in particular, we need to empower the families. We 

need to give them hope. We need to help go from hope to action 

through social entrepreneurship and to provide a model for impact 

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tem can work together to create jobs. I see social entrepreneurship 

as a great tool and a great resource in Africa. 

There are 350 social entrepreneurs in Africa supported by 

Ashoka which select social entrepreneurs with potential to change 

the local environment in which they act. I am an Ashoka fellow. 

I am also a Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur. They have 

conferences on Africa. They are connected with the World Economic 

Forum. When we can connect these stakeholders then we can help 

release the parent power, turn that into social entrepreneurship 

that can work with big business and with governments and other 

stakeholders. 

Just imagine if we can invest in creating jobs for people with autism and assist the education system to identify and support differently-abled students with autism in the U.S., Africa, and globally. With a job creation approach to the global autism challenge, 

we can really make results that will make a lot of sense from a 

family, a health, a human rights, a business and a financial perspective. 

Thanks again for your leadership in this, and I will be happy to 

answer any questions. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much for your leadership as a pioneer and that vision of 1 million jobs, 100,000 in the U.S., couldn’t 

come at a better time. Like Victor Hugo once said, nothing is as 

compelling as an idea whose time has come. So thank you for your 

pioneering work. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sonne follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Ms. Hussman. 

STATEMENT OF MS. THERESA HUSSMAN, BOARD MEMBER, 

AUTISM SOCIETY 

Ms. HUSSMAN. Congressman Smith and members of the committee, it is my pleasure and honor to be asked to appear before 

you and to talk about what we believe is the most critical and important need for over 3 million individuals who have an autism diagnosis. 

My name is Theresa Hussman, and I am a dedicated volunteer 

of the Autism Society of America, the Nation’s oldest and largest 

grassroots national autism organization. Our organization’s president, Scott Badesch, is currently hosting 1,000 people at our national conference in Indianapolis, and he asked me to come and 

present the testimony for him. 

With over 105 affiliates serving close to 1 million people each 

year, the Autism Society national network works each day to improve the quality of life for all who live with autism. We do this 

in ways that are outcome-based, and I am proud that we are fully 

inclusive having individuals with autism, family members, professionals and community leaders in all parts of our governing and 

advisory boards. 

In addition to serving with the Autism Society of America, my 

husband John and I are the very proud parents of four young 

adults, one of whom has autism. Over the past decade, we have 

been among the largest private funders of autism research and recently established the Hussman Institute for Autism, a research institute founded on the principles that people with autism have far 

more competence than they may be able to demonstrate or that society allows them to achieve. I want to commend this subcommittee, and especially the leadership of Chris Smith, for holding this important hearing. 

A few years ago, there was a video that went viral of a young 

man with autism named Jason McElwain, they called him ‘‘J-Mac.’’ 

He spent his high school years as a manager of his high school basketball team because he had a passion for the game. In his senior 

year, he was allowed to play 4 minutes and 19 seconds of a game. 

During that time he made 7 baskets, 6 points of which were 3-

pointers. While millions who watched celebrated that brief moment 

of opportunity, those of us who advocate for our loved ones with autism also asked why wasn’t he on the court the whole year? 

In school, at work and in the community, people with autism are 

often faced with segregation, low expectations, impoverished conditions and denial of opportunities that a society committed to civil 

rights should find completely unacceptable. Today, if you are an 

adult living with autism, you will likely be unemployed or vastly 

underemployed, living well below the poverty line and denied access to affordable housing and much more. 

The most agreed-upon rate of unemployment or underemployment among adults with autism is close to 70 percent. Think for 

a minute, if any other group of individuals in our Nation had such 

a high rate of unemployment. While companies are now starting to 

move in the right direction to address this dire statistic, including 

SAP, AMC Theaters, Walgreens, UPS, EMS Insurance and many 

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more, the reality is that behind each of those statistics is the lack 

of our Nation’s attention to fully integrate those living with autism 

into our mainstream society. 

Though universal access is often expected of our buildings and of 

our stairways, our society has yet to build that universal access 

into our schools, our curricula, our workplaces, our hearts, and our 

minds. A person living with autism has every right to be included 

in the mainstream of society, but it isn’t occurring. 

Ask almost any parent of a school-aged child with autism about 

their struggles with public school systems, and they will tell you 

story after story about lack of inclusion, denial of rights, and inadequate educational supports. You will hear about schools that underestimate children with autism and limit their educational opportunities. While we watch the number of children diagnosed on the 

autism spectrum increase, we fail to prepare these educators, paraprofessionals and school administrators to properly support their 

students with autism. Yet, every one of them will come across a 

child on the spectrum every day. 

Many school districts and superintendents fight against laws 

that would regulate the harmful impact of restraints and seclusion 

on innocent students with autism. Even though research has demonstrated that these approaches are entirely unnecessary when 

people with autism are provided with appropriate, positive behavioral support. 

Many colleges define their commitment to educational opportunities for a person with a disability as being little more than some 

extra time to take a test. It is rare to find a school leader who is 

held accountable by his or her governing board for the success of 

students with disability. Autism creates enough barriers for individuals to demonstrate their ability and to engage with their community. We need our Nation to lower those barriers in every aspect 

of life, not to build them higher. 

With respect to employment, too many public schools and colleges are not addressing the educational and job skill development 

needs of our students with autism, leaving adults with autism untrained or unprepared for employment. Fortunately, many employers are now beginning to advance their hiring of autistic adults, 

and they demonstrate that if given a chance, an adult with autism 

will be an outstanding employee. 

Oftentimes, the Federal Government reinforces the perception 

that individuals with autism and for that matter any developmental disability can’t work in meaningful jobs. In the State of the 

Union address, President Obama suggested a $10.10 minimum 

wage for workers paid through Federal grants and contracts. But 

it is so common to underestimate and marginalize workers with a 

disability that they weren’t originally part of this effort. Fortunately, many organizations including the Autism Society advocated 

for inclusion of individuals with a disability in that Executive 

order, and we are proud that the President assured inclusion of 

workers with a disability. 

At the Autism Society, we believe that educational inclusion, employment opportunities, and equal participation in community life 

are civil rights. As in other civil rights struggles, our Nation needs 

the moral conscience to embrace people with autism as different, 

30

not as less. The answers are not difficult. First, we must ensure 

that every government agency and body respects the value and dignity of each person living with autism, or for that matter, any disability. Secondly, we must assure that if a government entity is 

helping all people, it does so in a way that is inclusive of those with 

autism. 

We must also ensure that people educational institutions are 

held accountable for seeing that students with a disability are provided the same level of educational opportunities as those without 

a disability. We know that those few educational institutions that 

do provide a high commitment to opportunity for students with a 

disability are showing that with support, a student with a disability can be successful. 

A strong example is Marshall University in West Virginia, and 

Evan Badesch, who is the son of our organization’s president. With 

proper support and Evan’s amazing desire and commitment to obtaining a quality education, he is succeeding. This is because the 

university, from its wonderful President Dr. Stephen Kopp to all of 

the faculty, are fully committed to ensuring that every student, regardless of their condition, can succeed. They see the value of such 

success and they know it is the right thing to do. 

The Autism Society believes that we also must change the national discussion regarding autism from simply cause and cure to 

one of hope, acceptance, support, and opportunity. We can seek to 

improve the lives of people with autism without sending the message that they are not yet enough to be loved, valued, and accepted 

as they are. 

Finally, and we believe this is critical, we must focus our efforts 

through a private/public partnership that does not rely on Government to do it all. I again, want to commend Congressman Smith 

who is working with us in addressing adult services in a way that 

assures maximum opportunities by advancing proven best practices 

through a public/private effort. People with autism deserve more 

than 4 minutes of the game. Real change that embraces them in 

the mainstream of our society will only come when we all work together. 

I thank you for your very important attention to this critical 

matter, and I would be happy to answer any questions. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Hussman, thank you very much for your testimony and for the perspective that you bring to this. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Hussman follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. And the long advocacy of Autism Society of America, 

I have been involved since 1980, and I will never forget when we 

had a game-changing moment in my district in Brick where we 

thought there was a prevalence spike, and I introduced the bill 

called the Assure Act, which is really the Combating Autism Act, 

it is almost identical with some tweaks. And CDC and NIH were 

against it and thought it was a solution in search of a problem. 

I will never forget it. It was, you know, really difficult to understand the lack of interest given the example CDC spent $287,000 

per year on their entire program. I mean, that doesn’t buy a desk 

and one or two people. And I often ask them, what do you do? It 

took 3 years to get the bill passed. It was title I of the Children’s 

Health Act. 

And the reason why I mentioned it, the Autism Society was instrumental throughout that whole process gaining cosponsors and 

educating and educating and educating members who, again, many 

of whom at the time, typically in 1997, 1998, shared the view that 

this was extraordinarily rare, 3 in 10,000 was the number when I 

got elected, and a lot of us clung to that as, well, that must be the 

number. So thank you for that longstanding leadership. 

Mr. Rosanoff, I am going to recognize you in a moment but there 

is a vote on, a couple votes. We will take a recess. And several 

members have said they wanted to be here and they will come, I 

am sure. But this is, I think, an opportunity to round them up. 

Thank you. We will stand in brief recess. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. SMITH. The subcommittee will reconvene and continue with 

this hearing. 

And I recognize Mr. Rosanoff. 

STATEMENT OF MR. MICHAEL ROSANOFF, ASSOCIATE 

DIRECTOR, PUBLIC HEALTH RESEARCH, AUTISM SPEAKS 

Mr. ROSANOFF. Thank you. 

Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bass, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to share Autism Speaks 

experience working with autism communities around the globe. 

My name is Michael Rosanoff. I am the associate director of public health research at Autism Speaks. Since 2007, I have managed 

the organization’s epidemiology research portfolio, research focused 

particularly on measuring the prevalence and economic cost of autism in the U.S. and worldwide. I am also a member of the organization’s international scientific development team helping lead Autism Speaks’ Global Autism Public Health Initiative, currently active in over 50 countries around the world. 

I am formally trained in public health and epidemiology and 

have a personal family connection to autism. Our mission at Autism Speaks is to change the future for all who struggle with autism spectrum disorders. This can mean funding scientific research 

for those families struggling to understand the causes of autism; it 

can mean developing strategies to help those struggling to overcome barriers that limit access to effective services; or it can mean 

providing support for those struggling to receive acceptance and opportunities to contribute to society. 

35

Because autism knows no ethnic, cultural, or geographic boundaries, neither does Autism Speaks. In 2007, the United Nations 

adopted a resolution recognizing April 2 as an annual day of world 

autism awareness. In response to the increase in awareness worldwide and with it the increase demand for information and support, 

Autism Speaks launched the Global Autism Public Health Initiative in 2008, with the objective to develop sustainable, broad-reaching and culturally-sensitive programs that build local capacity for 

autism research and service delivery. This is accomplished through 

multidirectional knowledge transfer and multinational collaboration among diverse stakeholders. 

In just over 5 years, our international team has traveled more 

than 1 million miles and spoken with hundreds of affected individuals, parents, professionals, and government officials. Today, I 

would like to offer you some of our experiences and important lessons learned. 

The autism community is diverse, with a diverse set of challenges and a diverse set of strengths. As autism is a lifelong condition, those challenges and strengths often change over the course 

of time, thus, there is no single one-size-fits-all solution to improving lives of those touched by autism. Autism is not simply a health 

issue but also an educational issue, a social welfare issue, and a 

human rights issue. The most effective strategies are those that are 

comprehensive and multi-sectorial. 

For example, in developing a national strategy for autism in 

Bangladesh, the government established an inter-ministerial task 

force to implement a coordinated plan of action across eight government ministries, including health and education, also social welfare, labor, and even finance because to achieve a truly inclusive 

society, autism is as much a labor and finance issue to increase employment opportunities as it is an education issue to achieve inclusive education. 

Across countries, while cultures, belief systems, public health infrastructure, and resources may differ, all families around the 

world want the same for their loved ones with autism: Improved 

awareness to reduce stigma; statistics to know they are not alone; 

to advocate for policies, increased access to evidence-based services 

earlier in life and throughout life; and more opportunities for individuals with autism to reach their fullest potential in life and society, especially after their caregivers are gone. 

Common goals mean that common approaches can be effective 

across diverse settings which makes cross-country collaboration 

and idea sharing so important. Approaches do, however, need to be 

tailor-fit to different country contexts. What may be an effective 

strategy in one may not be feasible in another. Strategies must be 

adapted to fit the environment while maintaining their active ingredients. 

Today, the most practical and effective approach to increasing 

autism support is through community-based programs. The purpose of these programs is to relieve some of the demand placed on 

the few highly-trained professionals in clinical settings by transferring skills and knowledge to members of the community such as 

health workers, teachers, and parents. 

36

To help create a package of care that is transferable, especially 

in low-resource settings, Autism Speaks has teamed up with the 

World Health Organization in developing the intervention guide 

and training program to the delivery of autism services by community health workers in nonspecialized settings. 

The model is currently being used in Ethiopia as part of a project 

funded by Autism Speaks and as a result of the initial success of 

the program, the Ministry of Health of Ethiopia has made autism 

and mental health in general national priorities. They are currently organizing a conference on the scaling up of mental health 

services in the country. The WHO and Autism Speaks are also exploring models for parent training and the delivery of autism interventions. 

These activities with the WHO were among those identified as 

priorities as part of an international consultation on autism. The 

first of its kind meeting in the history of the WHO took place in 

Geneva last September. More than 75 representatives from nearly 

50 different international organizations participated, and among 

the most discussed and highly-prioritized issues were community 

inclusion and adult employment. This comes as no surprise considering that based on current best estimates of autism prevalence, 

every year tens of thousands of children with autism become adults 

with autism. How are we preparing them for society and is there 

adequate opportunity for them to pursue employment and independent or assisted living? 

In Geneva, we heard about innovative models for identifying 

unique talents of individuals with autism that would make them 

valuable assets to an employer. Two of those models came from 

Specialisterne and SAP, both of whom you have heard from today. 

But there is nothing like seeing the success of models firsthand, 

models of community inclusion and practice. 

In Bangladesh I visited a center for individuals with disabilities 

in a small, rural community on the outskirts of the capital city 

Dhaka. The community itself surrounding the center was unlike 

any I had seen before. Well, it looked like other roads I had seen 

elsewhere in Bangladesh with small shops and markets selling 

clothing and groceries. The difference was that individuals with 

disabilities including intellectual disabilities and autism staffed all 

the shops. Not only were these individuals learning employable 

skills such as counting money at the register, but they were bringing money into their community and, most importantly, raising 

awareness of disabilities. 

I also had the great fortune to travel to Lima to visit the Centro 

Ann Sullivan de Peru, or CASP. CASP is a center for individuals 

with different abilities, not disabilities. It first opened its doors 

over 30 years ago in a garage and now has hundreds of current 

students and past graduates. The curriculum is community based, 

where 30 percent of services are delivered at CASP, and 70 percent 

are delivered at home in real-world settings. 

Students learn real-world tasks needed to survive in a city environment such as using mass transportation. That is a skill they 

will need to be able to get to and from a job. A goal for all students 

at CASP is to get a job. That is not just true for those with autism 

who are less severely affected. Even those with greater challenges 

37

often have or can learn skills that are attractive to employers and 

these individuals can be successful in a career with the right support. 

Importantly, the staff at CASP works with members of the community such as the bus drivers and employers to educate them 

about autism which in turn perpetuates a more inclusive society. 

In a resource-poor country like Peru, it is not uncommon for graduates of CASP to actually become the family breadwinners, earning 

enough money to help support the entire family. Why couldn’t this 

model work elsewhere? 

This brings me to a lesson learned: We must not overlook that 

knowledge transfer goes both ways. We can learn as much as we 

can teach, if not more by working with autism communities from 

around the world. Countries and regions with limited resources 

and professional capacity had been for years developing innovative 

solutions to overcome the gap in autism services and the challenges 

to community inclusion that we experience even here in the United 

States. 

In just the last few years, the pace of development for autism has 

accelerated rapidly and globally. A new United Nations General 

Assembly resolution adopted in December 2012 increased the commitment and accountability of governments worldwide to address 

the social and economic challenges of autism. And following the 

WHO consultation, the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution that provides a framework for the enhancement of national 

health systems to include autism services. 

Many countries have since developed national autism action 

plans and passed autism legislation. For example, in Africa, the 

country of South Africa for the first time has a framework for mental health including developmental disabilities and autism. And 

earlier this year, 14 African nations participated in an autism Congress sponsored by Autism Speaks in Ghana, where the First Lady 

of Ghana and the Minister of Health in Tanzania committed to enacting change for the autism communities of their countries. 

Worldwide, governments are listening and the commitment is 

there; however, know-how and capacity are often not. The final lesson learned I would like to share today is that legislation does not 

necessarily translate into action. Many of the autism laws passed 

in recent months around the world are well-intentioned but lack 

the strategy and resources to implement properly. In some cases, 

poor execution leads to unsuccessful programs that may actually 

hurt the chances for future support. More concerning is that hope 

can turn to helplessness for members of the autism community 

under these conditions. 

In India, there have been inclusive education laws in effect for 

many years, yet true school inclusion has not been achieved. I just 

returned last week from a consultation in New Delhi with the 

World Bank working with the disabilities and education communities to develop and improve strategy for inclusive education in 

India. 

It is clear that you cannot simply put children with autism into 

a classroom without properly training the teacher and educating 

the students. Furthermore, in a place like India, you cannot simply 

train a teacher only on autism where there are many other chilVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:37 Oct 14, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00041 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\072414\88833 SHIRL
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dren with other disabilities that also have a right to inclusion. It 

is important that we consider working with and learning from 

other disability advocates as we aim for acceptance and inclusion 

for our loved ones with autism. 

Autism is a highly prevalent and highly costly condition to societies around the world. At least 1 in 68 children in the U.S. has 

an autism spectrum disorder, and research suggests that prevalence may be the same or higher elsewhere around the world. A recent study estimated that the costs to U.S. society are $236 billion 

per year, with much of that cost due to adult residential care and 

loss of productivity for both caregivers and adults with autism, 

many of whom could be earning greater income. 

The time to act is now, and there are already models available 

that are improving access to services and promoting community inclusion around the world. By working together and learning from 

one another, we can change the future for all who struggle with autism worldwide. 

Thank you for your time, and thank you to the many families, 

professionals and government officials who have welcomed Autism 

Speaks to their countries to learn from their experiences. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Rosanoff, thank you very much for your testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rosanoff follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. We are joined by Chaka Fattah from the Appropriations Committee and with whom I have worked for years on a 

number of issues especially with respect to brain health. 

Mr. FATTAH. Well thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me thank the 

panel. 

I am not a member of the subcommittee, but the chairman and 

I have worked together on a number of important issues including 

safe blood in Africa, which has been credited with helping millions 

that live and have increased life chances on cord blood, but of late, 

over these last few years, working on neuroscience or brain-related 

illnesses, and we have launched legislation to create a global Alzheimer’s fund. 

But today, we join together, and I am cosponsoring his legislation 

on autism, and this is some very important work. Now, Ron, in 

your testimony, you refer to——

Mr. SMITH. He hasn’t talked yet. 

Mr. FATTAH. Oh, he hasn’t talked yet. Okay. 

Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will yield. I want to hear his 

testimony. I will wait until he testifies and then I will ask. Thank 

you. 

Mr. SMITH. We now recognize Pulitzer Prize winner, Ron Suskind. Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF MR. RON SUSKIND, AUTHOR 

Mr. SUSKIND. Thank you, Chairman Smith and all the members 

that are here today on this busy day. Thank you for giving me an 

opportunity to speak in a forum like this. 

As many of you know, I have been in this town for some decades, 

usually on the other side of these various tables, walking around 

with my pad and my tape recorder, writing for the Wall Street 

Journal, writing six books now. This last book is my sixth, and seeing a town that is often locked in a kind of zero-sum conversation. 

One person’s benefit is another person’s loss. Pie is only so big. 

This is not one of those conversations, which gives me some hope. 

This is as close to a win-win as you usually get in a town like this. 

What we have here is a community that we are now increasingly 

identifying as folks who can lead their own pass. For every dollar 

we spend to help them, we know if we look at Thorkil’s model, we 

look what SAP is doing, they will return many dollars in all the 

ways our economists love in productivity, in independent life, and 

save extraordinary amounts of money that frankly they don’t want 

us to spend anymore than anyone does. 

In a tight Federal budget saying several hundred billion a year 

is money we do not have. We are at a point of inflection in this 

debate, which is why I am hopeful. I am hopeful to hear what is 

being said at the table and what is being said from the dais where 

elected representatives say, ‘‘I get this.’’

You know, I have been at this for a long time, and I have traveled the world during the last 20 years talking to people who had 

been left behind, in urban America, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan 

and what I find with many of them, they are living a life that is 

context blind. Now, we know that term from our own kids. It is 

often said that autistic kids are context blind. Well, I say, yes, in 

some ways they are context deep. 

44

But the context that we reward, the one that is kind of the 

shared context, picking up queues of knowing who is where and 

where they sit, what they come to the table with, all that kind of 

social engagement context. I think we reward that too much, and 

we will find going forward that we are often better off embracing 

its counterpoint which is difference, which is the deep well of variance and the deep power of distinction. 

You know, many of those kids from Afghanistan and Pakistan, 

I sit with them. I am like, the kid is unlettered. He is context blind. 

But he is improvisationally gifted, born of survival, born of the ingenuity that comes from survival and in Southeast Washington, 

where I reported for years, I found the same thing. I wrote about 

a kid, the stories that won the Pulitzer Prize. What does he do? He 

doesn’t learn the basic block and tackle of education. His brain, and 

we know the brain is ever shaping itself, has not been shaped that 

way. He didn’t get that shaping from an education system. 

So he is in a tough spot at Brown University, the one guy in a 

decade from his inner city school here at Ballou High School to 

make it. He is caught. What does he do? He writes a 68-line epic 

poem on heterogenous and homogeneous grouping. He has an affinity. This affinity, in terms of poetry and rap music, he finds a way 

to use that to dissect a complex issue of education. 

Now, I want to give that guy a prize and society does, too. What 

we are seeing is the one-size-fits-all model that rewards some traditional learners, folks who get the game and how it is played. Well, 

it is discarding too many people in a society that cannot afford to 

do that. We are throwing away too much human capital, possibility 

and potential, and the canary in the coal mine, I think, is this population that we are talking about today. Absolutely. They are exactly like us, just extreme versions, all right. 

Now, I know we want to say this is a terrible illness and a Holocaust. I felt that. My son is 23. We have been at it for 20 years. 

And there are times where you say it is a tragedy. But then over 

time, all of our kids have said, hmm, I wouldn’t use that word actually. Because I can do some things. Look what I can do. If you just 

listen and don’t try to make me more like you but help me be more 

like me in a nourished and supported way, I can show you stuff. 

And that is what happened in this story. Traveling the world, 

talking to the disenfranchised, sitting with them in mud huts, sitting with them, caught in terrible circumstances of violence often 

borne of bigotry, of violent tribalism. What do I find? 1993, I find 

the most significantly disenfranchised person I have met is living 

in the bedroom on the second floor. It is my son. 

He is whacked with autism just shy of his third birthday. Chatting away, late onset, they call it. I love you. Let’s get ice cream. 

Where are my Ninja Turtles? At two and then we moved to Washington where I became the senior national affairs writer for the 

Wall Street Journal. Big moment for the family. On our way up. 

Everything seemed just right. I was full of certainty and smugness. 

All working out. My mother was just so proud of me. 

And then we got whacked and then Owen started to vanish. Late 

onset autism, usually between 18 and 36 months. He lost function. 

First, he wouldn’t look at us, then he wouldn’t talk to us, then he 

could not speak. The few-hundred-word, 21⁄2-year-old vocabulary 

45

ends up being one word a few months later. And then we heard the 

first word of regressive autism. 

Autism. We didn’t know much about it. Now, the chairman talks 

about pushing forward legislation in 1980. What did the public 

know of autism in 1980? Well, not very much. But even back then, 

there was talk of the refrigerator mothers. Well, in 1988, most of 

our education happens because most of us here saw ‘‘Rain Man’’ 

with Dustin Hoffman. That is mostly what we knew. Rain Man 

Babbitt and when we got that diagnosis, we said, there is no way 

my son is that guy. We embraced denial, which is a powerful force, 

not one I recognized as powerful as it is back then. 

So here is a story as it unfolds. He loses speech. He is alone. The 

world is talking to him like Charlie Brown’s teacher. Wah, wah, 

wah, wah, wah, wah. Charlie Brown. He can’t even hear the Charlie Brown. The one thing, though, that seems to give him comfort, 

the only thing, is the thing he loved before the onset of the autism, 

the Disney animated movies. I am like, this can’t be. I mean, not 

Disney. But yes, Disney. 

So what we did together as a family is the only thing we could 

do as a family. Of course, I have an older son, 21⁄2 years older than 

Owen. We watched the animated movies up in the upstairs bedroom of our Georgetown house not far from here, the only thing 

that seemed to give him comfort. Now, at this point my son is murmuring gibberish. 

At this point, he is talking like baby talk because he has lost 

speech and he is back to the early antecedents of speech where babies murmur gibberish, and he is saying, ‘‘juicervose, juicervose, 

juicervose.’’ My wife thinks he wants more juice. Doesn’t want the 

juice. But we are upstairs watching a movie called ‘‘The Little Mermaid.’’ Anyone here seen that movie? Yeah. Yeah. The chairman 

has seen it, so I think everyone should raise their hand. We have 

all seen it. Yeah. Yeah. He has the power of the chairmanship. 

And Ariel, you got it. No, you are on it, you know. Which character? Do you think King Triton is kind of your guy? Is that your 

character? Yeah. I mean, look, I think it works. Yeah. 

Mr. Chairman is the sidekick that helps the hero fulfil her destiny; that is not Triton. That is a different character. More Sebastian. Sebastian is good. Watch the movie. He is the one you want 

to be. 

So, we are watching the movie up in the bedroom. It is the part 

where Ariel, the protagonist, wants to transform herself. To become 

human this mermaid, she must make a trade with the villain, the 

sea witch who says, I won’t cost you much, a trifle really, just your 

voice. Owen rewinds. You know, his motor function has collapsed 

except the rewind button. That’s good, he rewinds it again. His 

brother says Owen, just watch the movie. All of a sudden Cornelia 

says to me it is not juice. I said what? It’s not juice. It’s just. Just 

your voice. I grab Owen, silent for a year, and he looks at me for 

the first time in a year and says juicervose, juicervose, juicervose. 

This is our moment. We called it our Helen Keller/Anne Sullivan 

moment. 

Our specialist said don’t be so sure. This is called echolalia. They 

memorize sound. They don’t know what the words mean. This is 

often the way we see this population. If they can’t express it, it 

46

doesn’t exist. They can’t show and tell of their emotions, we assume 

there are no emotions to offer. That is the way we used to think. 

It is changing. But this is 1994, and our therapist said echolalia. 

I said is that like what it sounds like? That’s right, like a parrot. 

That is right. We went through several years of this. Several years 

where he is murmuring lines from movies. 

What do we find to make this story come to its crest? We find 

he memorized 20 Disney animated moves of sound alone, and if 

you threw him a line, he would throw you back the next line. We 

spoke in Disney dialogue for years. I mean because everything is 

in the 50 animated Disney movies and ‘‘Snow White and the Seven 

Dwarfs.’’ I mean what is not in there? So he would just pick a 

scene. At the beginning it was ‘‘The Jungle Book,’’ I am Baloo. I 

know the height thing doesn’t really work but you know I am kind 

of goofy. My wife is Bagheera, the panther, protective. That 

worked, that is type casting. His big brother is King Louie, and 

Owen of course is Mowgli. He throws you a line. You throw him 

back the next line. 

Over years we became animated characters, and this is how he 

gets his speech back. Took a couple years, but it happened and 

then, he turns the hundreds of hours of memorized dialogue and 

lyrics into an emotional language all his own, invented one. Inventing an emotional language. That’s something that gets a big bell 

rung. Then he developed a life philosophy and he writes a story at 

the end of the book ‘‘Life Animated,’’ my book, which is his original 

story. 

Now, what does this tell us? This tells us a profound thing that 

maybe people know anecdotally at this table and society is learning 

by the hour, that these affinities, every kid has got one. Often they 

have several but usually one more than others. They are like life 

boats for these kids. Over the many decades with autism, the view 

was wean them off of it. It is perseverative, it is wheel in the ditch, 

it is obsessive. Definition of obsession, interest to the exclusion of 

all else. Well, that is the way they are built. They can’t dance 

around like bees going flower to flower. They lock on. They are not 

foxes. They are hedgehogs. 

Again, they are like us, extreme versions of us. This is what we 

learn against our will. The years we locked the television set because he was doing all-night movie marathons, and we were just 

going crazy. At times we said let’s use it as a behavioral tool. If 

you want to watch your favorite video, here is ten things you’ve got 

to do, each like walking across hot coals. His behavior spiked a little, a little improvement at school but then trailed off. Like we had 

cut him off from his supply line. 

We tried everything until finally my wife in her wisdom says, respect his affinity, enjoy it with him. Look we can’t try to fix him 

every minute. That is not a parent-child relationship, not one that 

works and then we got in the basement with him, and we danced 

and we sang and we played characters; and he knew we weren’t 

going to pull the rug out from under him. That is the key because 

we see these affinities, and they can see we are impatient. And we 

know they are across the landscape. 

Some kids are into Disney. Lots of Disney. I would say the predominant one frankly, but a lot are animated. There is Thomas the 

47

Tank Engine, there are maps, there are train schedules. A parent 

came to me and said black and white moves from the 40s and 50s. 

I am like really? How old is he? He is 14. There is a lot to work 

with there. Get in there with him. Speak 40s black and white movies, speak map, speak Disney. 

Here is the key. What they learn and what my son learned in 

terms of basic education, general knowledge, it was vast. He 

learned to read by reading credits, again because that is the way 

he is like is only more so. That is the way we all are. The thing 

that fires us, our passion, it is always our pathway. It is not even 

like working. We learn to play the game in schools. Oh, my God. 

I got to memorize this. When is the test, and I forget it the next 

morning. These kids are never going to learn that. They are not 

wired that way. Their reward circuitry doesn’t work like that. 

Their passions are their pathways. 

So this is what we learn and then question is what do we do. 

This is creating change in the community that is in a way overdue 

and oddly expected. People have been talking about this for years. 

There is a tipping point we are seeing now. What does it mean in 

terms of what we can do? Well, what it means is that we now have 

a clear pathway that Thorkil and the other folks of this committee 

are seeing as well to say, yes, got it. Exactly like us only more so 

and less so. All right. 

How does that work? Well, the less so part is to make them fit 

into systems of valuing human ability that we know are kind of one 

size fits all and don’t work very well. Well, what we are doing there 

is measuring the less sos every day, trying to fix that part and 

often ignoring the more sos. Again exactly like us. It is the distribution that is the key. What are those more so parts? Hard to 

measure and why should that surprise you? Faith, will, adrenalin, 

creativity, the best stuff is hardest to measure. 

It is our yardsticks that need to be changed. That is part of the 

discussion we had during the recess, all of us together. How do we 

change the yardsticks? What happens when you have got a one size 

fits all yardstick that some kids succeed by managing and get that 

slot at Goldman Sachs or McKinsey. What do you do when that 

yardstick gets gold plated, even when we know it is bent? The mission, of common purpose in this period is to offer a new set of yardsticks that actually reflect the way we are in terms of the diverse 

character of human beings. Is that going to be difficult? Of course. 

Is that something government can help with? Absolutely. But those 

yardsticks are crucial because what happens going forward? 

Let me tell you what is happening right now in my crazy little 

shop up at Harvard. What we are doing is we are gathering affinities. We have folks coming to the LifeAnimated.net Web site. The 

book is only out 3 months, but there is a kind of energy, a revolutionary pop that is occurring. We say show me that affinity in a 

video. So we got the videos piling up. Every one like Owen. 

Using the affinity, and one of the researchers at Yale, which I 

will tell you about in a minute, says its like the Enigma machine 

during World War II. They use the affinity to crack the code of the 

wider world. So what does it look like? We have got kids with all 

kinds of affinities showing their stuff on the Web site. That is one 

side of it. 

48

The other side of it there is a team of neuroscientists that I am 

working with since the publication of the book, MIT, Yale, Simon 

Baron-Cohen at Cambridge University, folks at Duke, even some 

people at NIH because Tom Ensel is very psyched up about all of 

this. Here is what they are doing. They are bringing in communities of autistic spectrum kids at a young age. They are having 

them walk on to their affinity, and then they are doing the fMRI. 

Okay. Here he is in the sweet spot. Let’s lighten up. Well, look at 

that. The reward circuitry is alight. Parts that deal with social cognition are firing. Actually this shows in this fMRI his compensatory 

skills because that is the key. 

Again, you are an expert in neuroscience. You know we are living 

in the era of neuroscience. What have we learned just in the last 

15 years since those terrible, terrible moments where the epileptic 

kids had to have half their brain taken out, and everyone said oh 

that is awful, and then they said, geez, the remaining half is doing 

everything both halves used to do, how is this working? We 

thought the brain was static. We thought if it doesn’t happen by 

the time you are 3 years old, it ain’t going to happen. We are born 

with more cells as a baby than any known thing in the universe, 

and we shake them and discard them until we die. 

All of it wrong. We are constantly shaping our brains every day. 

You guys probably shaped it this morning frankly. We are growing 

cells and the brain is constantly improvising to find new neuro 

pathways. This is very hopeful because what do we find with our 

communities that the neuroscientists are affirming, a traditional 

pathway may be blocked, stressed by virtue of the hand they are 

dealt at birth. As they go out into the world and find their affinities, compensatory strengths are building. 

It is just high school science, conservation of energy. It goes 

somewhere. Where is it going? That is what the researchers at 

MIT, Yale, and Cambridge are there to find out and once we begin 

to discover, which is the way this is moving now, and it is not just 

there, it is everywhere. Once we discover those compensatory muscles, we will start to say fine, I can nourish that. I can support that 

and that eventually is going to be something an employer says, oh, 

can I have one of them. Actually 100 of them would do. 

What happens here? What happens is that we begin to tap enlightened self interest. Look, you all know as we all know, the only 

thing that works in a civil, free society in the free enterprise model, 

as the founding fathers knew, is enlightened self interest. We need 

to bring the enlightened here to the self interest, and we will do 

it working in unison. 

Researchers, government, industry, and frankly folks like some 

of the folks at the panel here today who are pioneering new ways 

to see ourselves through this left-behind population. This is what 

always changes the arc of history, the moment where the left-behind population is seen as not them but us. That is where we are 

now. 

So on the LifeAnimated.net site, we have neuroscientists looking 

at the videos of extraordinary feats of these kids who are discarded, 

and they are saying actually that is a neural pathway, and that is 

a neurological strength, and this is something an industry wants. 

That is one side of it. 

49

Another side of it is we are setting up the affinity network where 

these affinities are going to be displayed and scaffolded, again with 

support, so that employers can say uh, there it is, and that is 

measured good. Can we have an exchange or conversation with 

that young adult. We will manage that conversation. They are not 

going to be out there in the swift winds of public without support. 

Again, these are things that government might get involved with. 

Just like ebay or Monster.com for special skills. The way the world 

works now, two. 

Three, what I am now doing in the past 11⁄2 months is meeting 

with folks out on the far and distant coast. Folks who are building 

augmentative technologies and creating a generation of augmentative technologies that will be exactly the kind supports that this 

population needs. There is no place in which the return on this investment will be greater, not just for the folks who want to jump 

in and invest, but more importantly for society at large because 

this is the era we are living in. 

Now, Owen sees it as a side kick. He looks at Siri. He taps it 

on his iPhone. A couple months ago he says can I ask it anything. 

I said what would you ask it? And he starts reeling off what he 

would ask it. That helps him be context strong where he is often 

context blind. That is where we are going. This is something that 

is shared purpose, again not a zero sum game, a win-win. That is 

happening as part of a synergistic group of activities. 

Let me just finish with this. These affinities create community. 

I am a kid and looking at the folks in the panel and all of you were 

kids. We are lumpy middle aged people or better, you couldn’t find 

folks like you. Not so easy. You might have a club at high school, 

you might go to place where they did something like the comic shop 

or whatever it is. Well, now we can find each other. It is one of the 

great miracles of the connected age. 

What is happening is that these affinities are forming communities and once that happens, these kids don’t feel alone. They 

don’t feel broken. They feel strength in numbers. And they are like 

we are all good at our thing. We are not less. This part we are 

more and this is what happens every week at Disney Club at my 

son’s school. He started it when he got there 3 years ago, his college program at Cape Cod because he wanted friends. He wanted 

people like him. 

What is fascinating and enlivening and hopeful is that many of 

the kids in Disney Club were not raised in this sort of crazy, ionized, animated character, affinity therapy workshop that our house 

became. They were raised just like most kids. Some of them were 

told cut off the affinity. It didn’t vanish, and their passion did not 

diminish. When we get to Disney Club, it is like a dam break. The 

first Disney Club they are watching ‘‘Dumbo.’’ Great movie. Of 

course, Cornelia and I, my wife, we have been talking Disney for 

years. This is easy for us. We say to the kids, talk to me about 

‘‘Dumbo.’’ Why is this a favorite? One of the young ladies says let 

me explain. This is a young girl who could not speak as a child. 

Many of the non-speaking kids bond with non-speaking characters 

early on that express all emotions without words. Why is that a 

surprise? She says well, you see the thing that made him different, 

his ears made him an outcast, and I understand that from my own 

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life; but then he learned through his life that what made him different allowed him to soar. 

This is the age we are in. This is a time where we can allow 

them to soar, and it will draw the best from us, not just as individuals, but as a society to say in this time we rose to the occasion 

of making the arc bent. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Suskind follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Ron, thank you very much. That was an extraordinary bit of insight and sharing a personal history of you and your 

son Owen. Thank you so much for that. 

You know, I think one of the bottom lines that you have shared 

with us is that best practices also include the yardstick, as you put 

it, how we look at and view those on the spectrum, and that is a 

change that hopefully happens not just in Washington, but across 

all of corporate America and then throughout the entire world, 

which is one of the reasons why we are launching this whole aging 

out issue. 

Part of the CARES autism bill that has passed the House and 

is now pending in the Senate, is to get to the point of looking at 

what is available once you have aged out, housing, job opportunities, and we are hoping in at the end, all of your testimonies were 

just extraordinary. I still, and I have tried for a long time now, 

can’t get USAID to focus on autism. So your testimonies will be put 

in writing to Dr. Shah who is a good man, who is the Administrator for USAID. CDC does some work overseas but not enough 

or any from USAID. 

And your point, about the what you did, Mr. Rosanoff, in Ghana 

with the Health Minister from Tanzania and the First Lady of 

Ghana with 14 countries participating plus your work with Ethiopia. I had a hearing where we had women and children and families talk about what was available, and we had a woman from Cote 

D’Ivoire who talked about how in Cote d’Ivoire there was nothing 

available for her son, and she was one of the lucky ones at the time 

that went to Ohio and then received the full assistance of the state 

and municipality that she lived in. 

So, again, your testimonies are great and I was in the Centro 

Ann Sullivan del Peru and saw, I mean, while we can share many 

best practices, we can also glean best practices from others, and I 

thought they had much to offer in Lima. It is a 30-year-old effort, 

and I was really impressed. I could tell you were too by your statement. 

I would like to yield to my colleagues. I do have a couple questions, but I yield to Chaka Fattah. 

And then go to my good friend from Pennsylvania. 

Mr. FATTAH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The World Health Organization indicates that there are well over 

1 billion people worldwide suffering from one of some 600 brain-related diseases or disorders or challenges. 

Autism is something that we have seen an increased prevalence 

of worldwide, and in our own country something like 1 out of 68 

children are somewhere on this spectrum. We have got a gender 

situation where it is almost always a young boy, but I could just 

tell you the most hopeful thing I have heard is the testimony I just 

witnessed, Mr. Chairman. 

And it is quite empowering. So, and Tom Ensel is someone who 

I deeply respect, and I know that the Institute has been quite focused on this issue, and I want to spend just a few minutes on this. 

I had here on the Hill last week a young lady, Renee Gordon, 

whose son is an adult now and has had a whole set of challenges. 

But to jump to the positive, now he has got an iPhone that he can 

speak through. It hangs around his neck and to deal with the quesVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:37 Oct 14, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\072414\88833 SHIRL
58

tion of affinity, she had indicated that he knows every street in 

Washington, DC. You know, he can walk you through any museum. 

Because he has got this capacity, this strength, that others of us 

don’t have in terms of this. 

And it points to the work that you are doing around affinity. It 

is true that where every other description you would say that this 

young man was a low-functioning person, but in these particular 

areas, he functions beyond anyone else in terms of his ability. So 

there is something to be learned. 

I spent some time at Boston University at the Autism Excellence 

Center, and I was taken by the art work done by young people, and 

there is so much that we can learn here and I think you really 

have flipped this on its head from looking at it in one way, to us 

looking at it in a much different way. 

And so, Mr. Chairman, the other morning, on Tuesday I spent 

the morning at DARPA, and they are doing some great work on 

neuroscience, and a lot of people throughout our Government are 

doing important work and I just hope that as we look at this question about autism, that we put it in a broader context. I think 

about the gender bias. We see the same circumstances with schizophrenia. It is almost always a young male. And I am convinced 

that as we look at these things, that we are going to find solutions 

the broader we look and the deeper we look, and that is why the 

mapping of the brain and some of the other things that are not disease or disorder specific I think have an import in this effort because we have some real runway room here. 

There is a lot for us to learn. We have learned a lot, but we have 

to do more and we have to do it from a global perspective. And you 

know, the EU’s efforts, Henry Markram, the efforts in Israel with 

the Israeli brain technology, all around the world people working 

and that is why I am glad as chair of the committee you have 

taken this on to kind of look at it from a global context. 

So I thank you, and I thank you for all of your testimony. I read 

it before. We were over on the floor, so I wanted to jump the gun 

before you—I didn’t know you hadn’t testified. 

But thank you very much. Thank you. 

Mr. SUSKIND. You have inspired me, sir. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Meehan. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Well thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I think all of you inspire us as well with not only your—your 

persistence. You know and I think that is the kind of thing, I have 

the joy of living next to a neighbor with a young child, and we have 

the joy of watching him grow, but I have watched the parents, too 

and it is a remarkable thing to see. I know it is not always easy, 

but working not just to survive but to develop these into this next 

place is really what I think is so special about this hearing. 

Let me start first. And I am struck by, Mr. Suskind, your talks 

about the affinities and the identification of places, but Mr. 

Velasco, you have similarly used that same language, and if you 

could talk about your experience where you discussed the idea that 

so often those who have autism and have a lot of other coping capacities and skills to bring never get through the first interview, 

once they disclose something, and so they are constantly in the 

59

same vein in which you have identified it, seem to be ready to go 

and then they get knocked down by us. 

And yet here you are, taking the time to say, wait a second. Let 

us find this affinity, and, in fact, you are finding workers that in 

many ways are superior and that is sort of a breakthrough if only 

we are able to channel this understanding and have others begin 

to appreciate the opportunity that exists and is very special. 

So would you share with me your experiences, whether this experiment has met your expectations or perhaps even exceeded 

them, and I am particularly interested in how you focus on that 

particular strength that you are able to develop? 

Mr. VELASCO. Absolutely and thank you for the opportunity to 

share once more our experience with the Autism at Work program. 

George Brown is one of our new employees. George is early 40s 

in age, and he allowed me to share his experiences with you and 

with this panel and members of the audience. Just yesterday he 

sent me an email, and he said for many years I went through the 

interview process only to be rejected over and over again. I would 

take this skill or that skill that they asked me to learn. I would 

take or acquire this certification or that certification that they 

asked me to acquire to be marketable and employable. I went 

through college because they told me I needed a college degree; and 

at the end, he said, I was still being rejected. I suffer, he said, from 

deep depression because I continue to be rejected. 

What I find in Mr. Brown is a tremendous resiliency, of course, 

because he has been through this for many, many years. I found 

this passion for the work he does at SAP to be inspiring to other 

people. His testimony as a worker I think is unparalleled. He is as 

involved as any of the other 12 new colleagues that we have here 

at SAP. Does he have the capabilities that we are looking for? Absolutely. George has a degree in business administration with a 

specialization in management of information systems. So from 

purely a skill perspective, he has what we need in the organization, 

aligned with the emphasis, of course, that we are seeing in his dayto-day activities with the company. 

We also have other people like Janis Oberman. Janis is 56 years 

old, and Janis was unemployed from the year 2000 until 2014 approximately. She has a master’s degree, and she has an undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley. She 

was diagnosed with autism late in her age. She is a software tester, quality assurance in the business products that we sell to our 

customers. 

And what we are finding is that again the capabilities are there, 

the ability is there, the desire to work is there, but it is just that 

the other side of the table sometimes doesn’t have the capability to 

understand and harvest that talent. I believe that as organizations 

start maturing and learning that there is this pervasive skill out 

in the market, and as we start seeing that there is an enormous 

amount of job openings out there in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, that if something is not working right when 

you find that there is people that are unemployed, underemployed 

or partially employed who deserve a better shot. 

Our expectation at SAP is that those capabilities that we are seeing at work right now will pay off in the long term, in the short 

60

term as well, but in the long-term in retention practices as well as, 

because the cost associated for companies like ours to replace an 

employee go as much as 150 percent of the annual salary of the 

person being replaced. Now, if you have an attrition rate or a turnover rate in a company of 10 to 15 percent, which is typical in 

many software companies, replacement costs are a huge loss of 

money for the organization. So we are seeing that not only the skill 

acquisition, but also the retention of employees as something of extreme value. 

And so far what we are seeing in our employees again is 

thatresiliency, that intense desire to work, to come up to work 

every day and contribute as being you know, an enormous driver 

and inspiration for the rest of us in the organization. 

Mr. MEEHAN. I thank you for that commitment, and I hope that 

you will, as you further unlock this secret and build the record for 

these successes, that you won’t be worried that your colleagues at 

some of these other technology companies will catch up with you, 

that you will take that information and allow it to be shared so 

that others won’t be afraid to explore the possibilities and develop 

the potential. 

And I think, Mr. Suskind, you really developed this concept in 

the testimony which I found so intriguing. And I had an experience, Garnet Valley High School in my area is working in a very 

proactive way working with really two groups, which is kind of 

neat. The juniors and seniors are being taught robotics and how do 

the process of manufacturing and operation. The children in the 

grammar school, I watched the robot, and it sits and speaks and 

talks to them and the teacher said that. 

You know, when I talk to them, you can see the seven children 

around, and the engagement was, they knew the teacher, they 

were comfortable. There was a little more action with us in the 

room, but there was a sort of the management of the orchestra that 

was still warming up. But when they put the robot on, the children 

just came in, and they engaged in a way that I had never seen before, and they were sort of enjoying this concept that they are 

breaking through to something. Seems to me they are on to this 

concept that you were discussing. 

Tell me a little bit more about how we discover this in more 

ways, and certainly we know about the spectrum. There is really 

remarkably talented folks with a few issues, and there are some 

that are really struggling, as you said, to even say a word or tie 

a shoe. Do we find that same possibility on the full spectrum? 

Mr. SUSKIND. We do. We do. It is interesting because I arrived 

at this, Congressman, with what I say the same usual set of 

neurotypical prejudices and blind spots. I don’t even know what the 

word neurotypical means anymore. Frankly this whole experience 

has helped me look at myself and people I know with new eyes. 

We are probably all, in some years hence this will be discovered, 

we are probably all a mixture of many spectrums, many bands of 

color in the human rainbow. We have concentrations here and you 

know, less concentrations there. I think that’s the reality that we 

are all now seeing in some ways for the first time. 

What you are seeing now though are people recognizing that 

many of the ways we measure human capacity, i.e., expressive 

61

speech, well, it doesn’t track with underlying cognition. I know 

many, many kids with inabilities. We got 40 percent of the folks 

on the autism spectrum have little or no speech. They have now 

a new buffet, but they need more frankly here of augmentative devices, where they type. I have a friend whose son types 180 words 

a minute quite beautifully, grammatically perfect. The kid’s got 

real talent. He cannot talk to you. But what he is doing is he processing the world again through his powerful muscle, his Enigma 

machine, and he is breaking codes every day. 

Part of what you find though, what you are talking about, this 

robot, is that what I think many of the researchers have found, is 

that when there is something that is a verisimilitude of reality but 

a little off to the side, which is a little bit what this community 

does, they create an alternative alongside reality that kind of 

works, it grabs them. It draws them in. 

I mean, right now, and you can go online and see this, someone 

I know up at MIT, Cynthia Breazeal, who is the robotics chief up 

the MIT has created this robot, Jibo. And this thing is a desktop 

robot that does very much what you are talking about, and it is 

quite enlivening. And you can see how it draws in neurotypical people, but for the spectrum community, this could be a pathway to 

joy. 

I mean for instance, I can see Owen. Owen and I watched Cynthia’s video not too long ago, and he is like, wow, so I could have 

the robot do all kinds of stuff. I said yeah. I could have it play a 

video? Uh-huh. And I could talk to it? Well, we can’t do that. That 

is another company, ToyTalk where you can talk to the video and 

it talks back. I mean this is where we are going. We are all becoming kind of a version of Cyborg here. We are all augmented by a 

new generation of technologies. 

And what is interesting is that it goes not just to this community 

but how this community is a canary in the coal mine showing us 

ourselves more clearly as to what the future might look like. This 

is where enlightened self interest gets involved. You know, in some 

ways they are the R&D lab for what will be working for the rest 

of us. It is not just the app we’re building. Everyone is going to 

want the app because, look, I can use that, too. Developing context 

as I walk through the world. It is more than that. 

It is that the neuroscientists, as the Congressman understands, 

and anyone who deals with neuroscience is that Eric Kandel says 

it best. Understanding autism means we will understand the 

human brain. Why? Because it is odd and fascinating in the way 

it opens a window to seeing the brain in its more so and less so 

concentrations. So that means not just the areas that are challenged. That means neuroscientists saying look at the more so 

parts. Can my brain do that? That is where we see possible futures, where this community will start to lead. This is the sweet 

spot. 

And, part of what we could do together is to support the programs that alter perspectives and the framing of the debate. I 

mean, once that happens, much of this will carry itself forward, but 

that is kind of where we are right now. It is to say how can I help 

people see what the underlying science shows and what many people on the panel here know from long, hard-earned experience. 

62

Once that happens, this room grows. This table multiplies, and 

people start saying this is not about them, because they are us. 

This is about how through them, we all move forward and we are 

all better off. That is where a change occurs. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the courtesy of being 

able to be with you here with you today, and I really want to thank 

the panel for their tremendous and uplifting testimony. 

I am inspired and I am very grateful for the work that the constituent company has been doing at SAP. I look forward to continuing to work with you on these possibilities. 

I have a thing I am late for, but I thank you for the chance to 

participate. 

Mr. SMITH. I will just ask a few final questions, and again your 

testimonies will be disseminated very widely as soon as we get the 

full record together, so thank you for that. 

And, your points have been brilliant. I think you have focused on 

different things. I think the idea of looking at this you know, from 

a way we have not done before is greatly required to move forward 

and to make advancements. Talking about enlightened self interest, how do we go about getting the CEOs, the hiring specialists 

in companies, to really recognize, you know, the jewel that awaits 

them if they hire a person on the spectrum? 

Mr. VELASCO. Congressman Meehan had a really good point, and 

that was precisely in that direction. How do we make it happen? 

And I think that sharing is a key element of that. 

What we have done at SAP is we have opened up a number of 

venues for other employees to come and visit with us. We share 

what we have the minute that we have it available, so as soon as 

we are wrapping up our pilot programs, we are in a position to 

share our learnings. We have had up to now approximately 15 companies who have approached us, very large companies, very committed companies. One of them just told us last week that they had 

received final approval for their own Autism at Work program. 

Mr. SMITH. Are you at liberty to say who they are? 

Mr. VELASCO. Yes. The name is Capital One. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. VELASCO. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. You know, if I could, while you are answering that 

question, maybe you could elaborate, too, a little bit being from 

Denmark and with your European background, on how the Europeans are doing on this. 

And another question for you all, and Ms. Hussman, you might 

to want to touch on this as well. If 50,000 autistic American children are matriculating into adulthood every year, what are the 

numbers around the world? Are they along the same demographic, 

or has it lagged or what in other parts of the world, and how many 

do we see, you know, of the 70 million, how many of those are becoming adults? 

Mr. SONNE. Well, I have 10 years of experience from Denmark 

and we still have employees with autism working at the first couple of clients we have in Denmark, so it says something about retention and resilience. 

And what I experience here in the U.S. is that there is huge interest in focusing on talents here. I relocated to Delaware because 

63

Governor Markell said, I will get the stakeholders together. We 

have a lot of high tech jobs that are vacant and we have more and 

more people being diagnosed. So he chaired the meetings and 

showed political leadership that now has resulted in Delaware 

being our base for the U.S. What it takes is for the corporate sector 

to really request these people, because we have to turn from a push 

to a pull. 

We have to have companies like SAP doing the storytelling, but 

Specialisterne is also a case study at Harvard business school because we manage what they call the outliers, and they claim that 

the winners in a global knowledge-based market economy will be 

the companies who are at best at managing outliers because the 

edge is where innovation comes from. 

And in the latest issue of MIT Sloan Management Review, there 

is a story about the dandelion philosophy of how to see always the 

herb angle instead of the weed angle so you see a dandelion, and 

this is also what we have been discussing here today. Instead of 

looking at the deficits, let’s park that, and let’s see the strengths. 

I think that time is on our side because there are so many vacant 

jobs in this STEM sector, in the high tech sector, and thanks to stories from companies like SAP, we can get the companies to really 

say, wow, we missed something here. Let’s follow the SAP example. 

But there are also many with autism who do not qualify for the 

high tech jobs. But then there is the 503, the new rule saying that 

7 percent of people with disabilities should be working for you if 

you want Federal tasks. 

So that can really broaden the spectrum, not just for the high 

end part of the spectrum, but we can really have the opportunity 

to make Janis and George show the way, open the doors from the 

companies and then get as much talent in play among people with 

autism and similar challenges. There are many others who have 

challenges similar to autism, and we have to remember them, and 

hopefully we can get people with autism to open the door for people 

who have other challenges but have a lot of talent and capacity if 

the employers will accommodate for that. 

And I really follow Ron’s example of the canary in the mine 

shaft, because I claim that a workplace where our people thrive 

will be a good place to work for everyone. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Hussman, I thought your testimony was excellent, but your point that the lack of our Nation’s attention to fully 

integrate those living with autism into mainstream society, and 

you make a very important point which was created frankly by the 

ADA. Through universal access is often expected of buildings and 

stairways, our society has yet to build universal accesses into 

schools curricula, workplaces, our hearts, or our minds. If you can 

again answer the original question, but I think that point was very 

well taken. 

Ms. HUSSMAN. Yes. So one of my concerns in the dialogue here, 

or my experience in the dialogue here, is Mr. Suskind gave the percentage of 40 percentage are non-verbal or partially verbal, and so 

when we talk about the high skill jobs, we need to be coming at 

this from both—actually the logistics of the table works out well, 

from both ends. 

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What you will notice in many of the stories is that it took time, 

patience and support from many of the positive stories that you are 

hearing, and a lot of hours of a lot of parents and what we need 

is to shift that, not just from the parents, but to society as a whole 

when we talk about changing our minds and making the ADA bigger than our stairways and our doorways, is to say that our teachers, you have to pick special ed to get any training on autism or 

anything else. But I would defy you to walk into any American 

classroom today and not find someone with a learning disability, 

someone on the spectrum, somebody who needs different supports. 

So our curricula for our teachers alone could significantly change 

the landscape of people’s perceptions when somebody comes to you 

for a job or somebody comes to you for some other opportunity or 

tries out for a team. So I am not sure that I answered your question but——

Mr. SMITH. Before you go, the worldwide demographic, again 

moving into the adulthood stage, is it pretty much universal 

around the globe, or is it just——

Mr. ROSANOFF. So, Mr. Congressman, I can offer some comment 

there about numbers. Really the 50,000 children transitioning to 

adulthood each year is a number that is derived from the U.S. 

prevalence estimate of about 1 percent. We need to keep in mind 

that that prevalence estimate is among children. Our best estimates of prevalence around the world are about the same, around 

1 percent, so yes, we can think about it in terms of similar numbers. I can tell you from you know, experience in meeting with families around the world that this aging out issue, this transition to 

adulthood issue, is a major one and one that is on many people’s 

minds. 

But the point I want to come back to and I think the important 

point we shouldn’t forget is that we really don’t know how many 

adults there are with autism in the United States and around the 

world. Again the prevalence estimates are based on children. We 

have an estimate that about 1 percent of adults have autism and 

if that’s the case, then there are more adults today with autism 

than children with autism. But I think it is important to remember 

that many of these adults may not have formal diagnoses. They 

may be in different sectors of society. Some may be comfortable and 

contributing to society but with challenges that I think could benefit from more attention given to these individuals. 

We need to, I think, keep that in mind. When structuring these 

programs, an individual may not necessarily have to have the diagnosis with the consideration that they may have autism and just 

may not have a diagnosis yet. So improving our ability to identify 

adults with autism will help us better help them overcome their 

challenges and again find those opportunities to contribute to society. 

Mr. SMITH. Briefly, in your testimony you talked about 14 African nations that you were a part of and the First Lady of Ghana 

and the Health Minister of Tanzania. What has come of that? Did 

they come up with an action plan? Was there a follow-up to it? 

Mr. ROSANOFF. This was really a first of its kind type of meeting 

where the idea was to bring together advocates and various stakeholders from African countries, to share their experiences. This was 

65

an opportunity to demonstrate that there are similar challenges 

across countries, and even though there may be differences in culture and resources, there are common challenges that then allow 

for common opportunities to work together to collaborate and to develop these types of solutions. 

So really this was a first chance for various groups around the 

African continent to come together and think about an African autism network where the idea would be to develop strategies to raise 

awareness of autism across the continent but also build capacity 

for services and research. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Sonne, you had mentioned autism in Africa in 

your testimony and mentioned Nigeria has one adult psychiatrist 

serving the needs over 1 million people and the disproportionality 

of specialists and professionals to the number of people who are affected. I am working on a case now with CURE where they are trying to help children with hydrocephalus, especially those who get 

it from an infection base, and they have cured 5,000 kids in Uganda through a simple non-shunt related, no shunts are needed, and 

I went there and watched it. So did Greg and we actually one of 

the trained neurosurgeons come over and testified. He did it by 

Skype, so we saw him over there, and the idea is to build out a 

capacity of 100 neurosurgeons over time. 

We were also trying to get USAID to focus on that and thus far 

have failed miserably. But that said, it seems to be there is a similar type of lack of capacity and if you don’t have the skilled personnel you could have absolutely committed parents, but they also 

need that specialist’s insight and diagnosis in the first place. What 

are your thoughts on that? 

Mr. SONNE. Well I think, it is a matter of making the pull from 

the companies in Nigeria and other African countries, then I am 

sure that companies like SAP, they know what they are looking for 

and as we discussed, there are many adults with autism, probably 

the majority, who do not have a diagnosis but have the same traits 

and have the same talents that the companies are looking for. 

And I think when companies have learned from our experiences 

and SAP’s leadership here, they will create environments where 

people with autism thrive, but also people who are not diagnosed 

with autism will thrive and I think that will be a magnet. I think 

it will be known in the community. Well, you will know if you have 

challenges in social interactions and teamwork, but you are really 

good at math, physics, IT, chess player, type, so you would know 

that SAP, for example, would be a good place to go for you to work. 

My ultimate goal is really where we can take autism out of our 

equation and say this is not just about autism. This is about good 

management, and this is about giving companies access to talent 

and to help the companies find that talent and describe the shape 

it comes in. 

And many will have a diagnosis. Many will not. But I think if 

the needs, if the pull is there from the companies, if we can apparently empower the society and the families to learn social entrepreneurship, work with stakeholders, then you will not need an autism diagnosis in order to get in to thrive in program like at SAP. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me just ask maybe SAP or either you could answer this or anyone. A large number of people get jobs first as inVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:37 Oct 14, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00069 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\072414\88833 SHIRL
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terns. My legislative director, Cate Benedetti, just walked in. She 

first started as an intern. We got to know her, got to see her work 

product. Then Mary Noonan, our chief of staff, decided to hire her. 

Is there any kind of consideration given to SAP or in this model 

that would bring in some of the students before they cross over to 

adulthood? 

Mr. VELASCO. This is an incredibly important topic. The issue of 

transitions, and transitions happen all the way from high school to 

college, and for those who go through college to professional life. 

One of the things that we see is that people in the spectrum after 

they graduate from college, the ones that are able to finish, a junior college or a college degree, oftentimes drop and they have a 2- 

or 3-year cliff you know, where they are unemployed, and this is 

where they start asking themselves why can’t I find a position, a 

job. There is something wrong with me. Right. 

So it impacts people quite a bit. What we are doing right now 

is exploring the possibility of an internship platform at the company, allowing people to come in, in the junior year. This is still 

on the design phase, but it is something that we have our eyes set 

on. We believe we need to capture talent early on before they graduate, people with a degree, sort of education that we are looking 

for, and the idea is that we will introduce this process hopefully 

within next year. 

Mr. SONNE. Yes, what we are doing right now is we are working 

with this assessment, training and on boarding model. We are 

building bridges between people with autism and companies like 

SAP. But we want to remove the divide, and we can do that if we 

can work with the education system and the companies to have 

more crossover, to have the role models from the companies being 

involved in the school system and to have the students in internships. 

We have a youth education in Denmark where we do a lot of 

that. They are in internships at our corporate partners. We teach 

life skills as well because this is more important than what we are 

doing now. If we can work with the education system, we will hopefully be able to remove the divide and inspire by new way of seeking talents and to teach the companies new ways of management. 

Then we can remove the divide that is there today. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Suskind, final word. 

Mr. SUSKIND. It is interesting. You talk about these models of in 

a way exposure. There is lots of suspicion and confusion, and then 

they sit with the spectrum kid, the young adult, and they are like, 

huh, not what I thought. That is what the internship platforms are 

doing. You guys are leading that charge. That is something that 

should be happening everywhere. Every kid these days starts with 

an internship. No one is getting paid before they are 24. So that 

is an opportunity for these kids to not be different also being interns. That is one thing. 

The second thing that I felt was interesting a minute ago when 

you were talking about models that work in Africa, is that I am 

an old enough guy that I remember talk of the new Federalism 

back when, that states would be labs for programs, and the Federal 

Government would pass it to the states to figure out what works 

best. Well, now we are in a global experimental model that counVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:37 Oct 14, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\072414\88833 SHIRL
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tries that lead here will be demonstration models for what works, 

and you may find a surprise as to some countries that you would 

not expect to be leading that take the lead. 

I consider this when I think of incentives which is much of what 

we talked about today, a kind of incentive for a country maybe in 

Africa who gets put way down the list of possibility, says we have 

been able to shape something that can be used as a model for others. You know, a big challenge here that we have talked about in 

a different way all day, is something that I deal with at Harvard 

when I talk about narrative. It is about reframing the narrative. 

We all make sense of our world and ourselves through stories. Our 

kids, of course, do it very dramatically. 

And we talk about a lot of the math science kids that, of course, 

you guys have embraced. I am spending time with TED talks for 

the humanities types, lots of kids who work and live inside of stories and develop stories. Well, they get this, they get this in ways 

that even we don’t. That is a big part of what is so positive about 

this. Again, extreme versions of us that often reveal our capacities 

back to ourselves. That is a golden point here and in this case, they 

make sense of their life and their world through story. 

And the story here is reshaping, but it needs to be reshaped with 

a kind of solidity of purpose to give the employers the yardsticks, 

the tools they need, so they have no excuse. I have got the data 

now, okay, I have got this yardstick which measures this array, 

this buffet of compensatory skills. Now I have no excuse and in 

fact, I now have what you talked about, Thorkil, before; I have 

comfort in my corporate thinking where I want to reduce risk and 

I want to optimize potential and profit. That is the way companies 

think. 

Well, when they get those yardsticks to show capacity, again in 

this wide range, this arc of many types of intelligence, it gives 

them comfort on the risk side. It also gives them hope on the profit 

side. That is the only thing that will work here, and part of what 

we can do here is give them the tools, the supports, so that those 

corporate decisions will be the decisions that ultimately carry forward, not just the individual good, but the wider self interest of society, and I think it is within reach. 

Ms. HUSSMAN. Chairman, if I could, back on the numbers in 

other countries, we are in two cases, we have some schools in Asia, 

in Thailand and Burma, and we also have a grant with the Carter 

Center in Liberia where they are specifically addressing mental 

health as an umbrella and the approach is to educate, the further 

out you get from urban areas, it is just that. It is just an umbrella 

of mental health. If you have epilepsy, they believe you are mentally ill, and you will be chained until you work through your seizures. 

And so when we talk about the numbers, I think that until we 

get to a place of education, that there are specific disorders underneath of it, and in Asia we are finding, actually we sent our son, 

and there too, you have found that it is just, in the society that is 

so tough just to get through the day, that there is just a label of 

a mental disorder and our son was able to say no, I think he has 

autism, because he is familiar with it. 

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And if I could just make one other point for the day is that when 

we talk about the 40 percent non-verbal, when we talk about the 

progress and the skills, that it is not always just an economic benefit that these kids bring to our society. 

And so, that is the whole spectrum that we are talking about, 

that sometimes just bringing a society’s ability to recognize the 

value in ourselves at a better level, it has got some economic benefit to it as well, even if they are not——

Mr. SUSKIND. Creates a more humane civilization, doesn’t it? 

Ms. HUSSMAN. Yes. Yes. 

Mr. SMITH. Beautifully put. 

Unfortunately there is a vote on and it is at zero, so I am going 

to have to dart off. 

Thank you so much. This is part a of series. We have had other 

hearings on global autism, but this one has a very specific focus on 

the aging out issue. 

And all of your testimonies were extraordinary and I think will 

enlighten the Congress. It certainly enlightened me. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 5:17 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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