My life would not be worth living if I did not have intellectually satisfying work. My career is my life. Sometimes professionals working with people with autism become so concerned about the person's social life that developing intellectually satisfying employment skills is neglected. When high functioning autistic or Asperger's children reach 8th or 9th grade, they need mentor teachers to teach them skills such as computer programming. I had a wonderful high school science teacher who taught me to use the scientific research library.
Computers are a great field because being weird is okay.
I know several very successful autistic computer programmers. To make up for social deficits autistic people need to make themselves so good that they are recognized for brilliant work. People respect talent. They need mentors who are computer programmers, artists, draftsmen, etc. to teach them career skills. You never know where a mentor may be found.