Reading Temple Grandins book 'Animals in Translation' made me wonder if anybody had set up an agency or department to employ Aspies playing to their strengths - namely their beautiful ability to notice details that most people don't see: Proof reading, chicken sexing, quality control etc? :razz: :idea: :!: :?:
An aspie chicken sexing agency! Stranger things have happened. :lol:
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/richardh/chicken_a.htm
Expert chick sexers are able to quickly and reliably determine the sex of day-old chicks on the basis of very subtle perceptual cues. They claim that in many cases they have no idea how they make their decisions. They just look at the rear end of a chick, and ‘see’ that it is either male or female. This is somewhat reminiscent of those expert chess players, often cited in the psychological literature, who can just ‘see’ what the next move should be; similar claims have been made for expert wine tasters and experts at medical diagnosis. All of these skills are hard-earned and not accessible to introspection.
But is there really anything unusual about the chicken sexer, the chess grand master, the wine buff or the medical expert? I argue that there is not. In fact, we are all constantly making categorizations of this sort: we are highly accurate at categorizing natural kinds, substances, artefacts, and so on. We do so quickly and subconsciously, and the process is completely inaccessible to introspection. The question is, why is it so difficult to acquire skills such as chicken sexing, when we automatically acquire the ability to categorize other objects. In this paper, I argue that we have mechanisms for learning the cues necessary for categorization, but that these mechanisms require selective attention to be given to the relevant features. We automatically acquire the ability to categorize certain objects because we have inbuilt attention directors causing us to attend to diagnostic cues. In cases such as chicken sexing, where we do not automatically develop categorization abilities, our inbuilt attention directors do not cause us to attend to diagnostic cues, and out attention therefore has to be drawn to these cues in another way, such as through training.
I have never tried with a chicken but was 100% with my cats newborn kittens.
Gee Amy, any chickens that need sexing in your area? Could be a new career :lol:
I recently filled out a job application that had a separate 'equal opportunities monitoring' sheet. Where it asked about disabilities and their impact on the role, I stated I had Asperger's Syndrome and that it would have a positive impact on the role as attention to detail, coupled with hyperlexia traits made me ideally suited to a position that involved copy editing! :lol:
Funnily enough, despite meeting 22 out of 25 job/person criteria, I wasn't invited for interview. Wonder why? :roll:
:evil:
Employers do not want to hire people with disabilities. Maybe only people who have had an accident and they have had to make accomodations in the workplace for wheelchairs. Usually the workers they hire will have excellent pre-accident work experience. Plus they usually get government transportation bus to work.
I have found that most people do not want to hire anyone with mental illness, learning disabilities, cognitive problems or autism or non-visible disability. I have been advised not to mention any non-visible disability to employers until after a written offer of employment is accepted by myself. Most people do not even know what AS is anyway.
They probably hired someone's relative or friend. That is what I find is the case most of the time.
It has been explained to me that it is supposed to be polite for someone to mention a visible disability on an application or before an interview so the "interviewer will not be shocked when the applicant arrives" or if they need a ramp or elevator to get to the interview. Or they might need a sign language interpreters etc. So the disclosure is really for the interviewer, not for your own advantage. Disclosing your disability on an application or at an interview is only a disadvantage for you. Unless the employers is going to receive money to hire someone with a disability, they will not want to hire you. They just want to look "politically correct".