Aspies For Freedom

I am puzzled that Temple Grandin says that a poor short-term memory is typical of AS. That sounds more like a symptom of Alzheimer's than Asperger's.

As for building up a portfolio - sounds good in theory, but what if you're stuck in the "no experience, no job" rut?

Table 4 has all low paying jobs.  

Companies should be forced to pay people at least a "living wage".  That is a wage that someone can live on independently in the area where they work: pay rent, buy food and have some money leftover for clothing and other items.  

Table 1 seems right except for cashier.  Most cash registers are programmed to calculate change.  I have never had a problem working as a cashier.  I always balance except when people try to rob me.  I just could not handle people who were angry and upset.

As with most jobs -  I am not short on ability to do the actual tasks.  I do not like to make judgements and always seem to have a problem with workplace politics.  That is the number one reason why I have been laid off jobs more times that I can count now.  I never really do anything wrong that can not be attributed to poor management, inadequate training or bullying.  

Even if someone got the perfect job, changes are always added in by employers.  They suddenly decide that you should have new duties answering the phone and dealing with customers.  Or you end up with too much work.  I even had people complain that I did not talk enough about non-work related subjects (to me just wasting time).  

Rich people like Temple Grandin whose parents have lots of friends and contacts get positions for their children.  So if someone has a family that tells everyone about their child's autism, chances are that they are not going to get referenced to a good job by friends and neighbours.  -  just some pity job like stocking store shelves.   People are very prejudiced against anyone with any type of autism and most disabilities.

"Companies should be forced to pay people at least a "living wage". That is a wage that someone can live on independently in the area where they work: pay rent, buy food and have some money leftover for clothing and other items."

Thankfully in the UK there is a minimum wage for all workers.
Its not huge of course, but it is certainly an improvement.

I know some autistic people who have very poor short term memory, especially when stressed.

What the...? :lol:

I agree with most of what Temple Grandin says. I do have a poor short term memory, and an incredible long term memory.

And, The fReaK, violent images give me nightmares and frighten me.

I am rather on the severe end of AS, maybe that's why some of you don't understand what she is saying. It makes perfect sense to me.

And yes, unfortunately, table 4 are mostly low-paying jobs. But they are better than no job at all, I'm sure. It's almost impossible for non-verbal autistics to find higher paying jobs, that's just a fact.

The point is that the effects of violent images on different people vary very much, so simply making such a statement is pretty much pointless.

What I have against the article as a whole is that it contains some pretty broad generalizations. For you it might make sense, but certainly not for everyone. I would find it better if it were clearer and more specific when it comes to in which cases the suggestions are applicable, or stated that the suggestions were generic and not applicable for everyone.

Another thing I find a bit annoying is the hard drive - CPU analogy, since the CPU power has more to do with the overall speed of calculations; a worse CPU means that everything is calculated more slowly. A Hard drive - RAM analogy would be better, as the RAM is the computer's temporary/working memory. In fact, an even better comparison would be a slightly faster CPU and more hard drive space compared with more RAM.

I don't know about you, but I don't usually email the author(s) of every single article I have read that I have an opinion about. It was posted on this forum, and like a lot of other people usually do, I simply posted my comments on it. That's enough for me, in this case.

I have tried to contact Temple but she has no accessible e-mail at all.
Someone who knows her told me that she doesn't like to be contacted in that form, so that might be why.

To make a living out of one's perseveration (as Ms Grandin has done) depends on such jobs actually existing and one's career advisor(s) / mentor(s) being sufficiently informed. Neither are by any means guaranteed.

I think she's been incredibly lucky to be able to do a job she is fascinated by, and really excel at it.

I am wondering of there was some sort of different recognition for aspies and auties at school age, so instead of the usual career advice, it could take into account obsessive interests in a certain genre, and give advice that could make it more likely that a job of great interest could be found.

In school in the last year, I was very interested in sewing, knitting etc, as I still am, I studied it for an exam but the teacher of the class just hated me, I have absolutely no idea why. I was a quiet pupil, never swore, chewed gum, but I couldnt do anything right. I was very poorly organized, maybe that infuriated her. It got so bad I had to leave the class.

"Does any one have any ideas on how I can convince my general manager to turn down the timer???"   You can not.  This is just one of the put-up with things.  If the manager turns it off for you, he will have to turn it off for others.  Part of some franchises quality control is the time that it takes for a customer to be served.  Mystery shoppers are constantly being sent out to rate stores on their service.  If your workplace gets a low rating, your boss will blame you if he knows you are causing the long waits.  

If possible look for another job while you have a good reference from the fast food place.   Many people start out with their first employment experience at fast food places but do not stay long.  You should be proud that you have worked there for so long.  Do you notice a high turnover?  They may have kept you on tables so long because a) you did a good job b) you did not complain about it   c) most people are bad at cleaning, do not like it and think they are too smart/good to do it.  I give you bonus marks.  

I really dislike having to work in noisy places where other people are constantly in my "space" or way.  Too bad you can not use ear plugs.   Just try to serve one order or two at a time and deep breathes.  Since you have experience in cash, you might like to find another job in a quieter store or as a cashier.

Short term memory suffers when people are under stress.  My sister was totally hopeless at remembering anything after she had a car accident.  It was an extremely tramatic event.  After I had a heart attack I could not remember what I would cross the room to get.   Stress caused by a serious illness, tramatic event  can cause memory problems.  Some medications cause also have side effects that cause memory problems or brain fog.  Sometimes I just do not process what someone is saying to me, so I can not remember it.  When I am very nervous, I just have trouble learning and remembering.  

It could be that all the stimuli and overload because of the AS causes stress and causes memory problems.  Someone with AS working on their hobbies and areas of interest tend to have great memory.  Short term memory is necessary for long term memory to work.  

"I no longer have these problems with mental math because I discovered a short-cut for addition and subtraction. Now I can do mental math so fast that there is no hesitation from the moment I hear the math problem until the moment I give the answer. When people ask me how I do this, I explain it to them but they usually don't understand or say that they will just leave all the math to me."  Kids on the math teams are taught tricks to do mental calucations.   One of my own tricks is to round up or down.  For examples 8 x 280.   I will round up the 280 to 300.   8 x 300 is easy to do in my head = 2400   The difference between 300 and 280 is 20.   8 x 20 = 160.   Then subtract 2400 - 160 = 2000 + 240 = 2240  


On paper:
so 8 x 280 = 8 x (300 - 20)  = 8(300) - 8(20) = 2400 - 160  = (2000 + 400) - 160  =  2000 + (300 + 100) - (100 + 60)  = 2000 + (300 - 100) + (100 - 60)  = 2000 + (200) + (40)  = 2240

Any multiple of ten is easier to divide or multiply.  For division, I might factor out numbers first and reduce the ratio.  If this was really an area of strong interest to someone they would become very fast at it from constant drills.  For different methods look at this site:  http://mathforum.org/k12/mathtips/index.html#beatcalc
I think I should spend some time learning these tricks.  It could be fun.

Some "math skills" tests on job applications actually have these sorts of questions where the answers are all wrong.  Doing the actual long division and getting the correct answer rounded to the correct number of significant demical places is considered wrong because it assumed that the person cheated and used a calculator.  So they would rather hire some person who can't  do long division on scrap paper.  Ah,  the mysteries of candidate selection.  


Alzheimer's Disease is more not forgetting where they put their keys, but forgetting how to use keys.

Up until recently, I thought I was very high functioning but now I realise much of it was being a good mimic and being able to compensate for shortcomings: once those coping mechanisms are compromised, I'm probably moderately functioning at best.

Therefore, I don't mind being in a comparitively low paying job if it means less pressure to perform.

Where has the original article gone?  I'm sure it used to be in the first post of this thread, but it seems to have disappeared?!