Spectrum programmer here. High Functioning Autism is what my doctor calls it. The biggest difficulty for spectrum kids and adults is to make sense of the abstract perception we face. We simply perceive the world directly.

That's the biggest difference. That's why we don't get the jokes unless we spend time developing a response matrix for humour. That's the ticket.

Our biggest advantage is we get to hack our own minds. We can become brilliant or we can cause severe damage to our perception if we make mistakes. The most successful autistic spectrum persons all have luck and bright ideas that are executed perfectly. That's tough.

We don't get euphemisms either. While I recommend seeing the Temple Grandin film, and I see the similarities to how I view things and to how Temple's perception is portrayed in the film, every spectrum person is going to be a little different in their journey.

The best thing any parent can do for a spectrum child is to help them to understand how to perceive better.

For me, we had a tire swing on a swivel in our backyard park. Spinning in the tire helped me to develop a center of awareness... an assemblage of my perception. Prior to the tire, everything was blurry and AT ONCE. I could view and process my surroundings but not like other kids. I had no reference. It was all there bombarding my senses.

Most low functioning spectrum kids have not found enough of a gravitational or electrical/pain stimulus to ground them and get a full snapshot of their perceptional center. This means they live life completely blurry to things. They will often star off in the distance or at one specific part of an object, trying to understand what they are seeing.

Once we get a center, we can then create mneumonic references from that center and trace it back. It's about developing brain pathways to faster interpretive cognition.

The most successful spectrum people all have this in common -- lightning fast cognitive response. Sure they can be wrong just like anyone else, but their responses account for nearly all the variables... and that's why they tend to be on the very outlying boundaries of genius.

One problem that faces spectrum persons is the robust and painful experience of interacting with neurotypical persons who have the advantage of seeing the world the way they want to. They don't see it for what it is. They see it for how they think it is. That's most of you.

You can understand euphemisms because you see the clever connections in your imagination. You've heard them before. You can fake it if you haven't without any kind of painful emotional distress.

You don't see the world like a blur. It's clear. You get it. You can skip over things you don't care about. We can't really skip over things like you can, and especially if we perceive any connection between those things and our pursuit of answers. We lock on. We can't help it.

I won't give any employers advice for dealing with spectrum persons. Make sure your safety programs have a standard for dealing with all your different employees and do not put spectrum information in the disabilities section -- it's not a disability... it's kind of the opposite. The best place for spectrum procedures is in a section about Violence and Harassment because the most hazards exist there for spectrum persons in the workplace. Communication standards should also have a section about communicating with persons who are on the autistic spectrum.