Photo Credit: Red Maxwell via Compfight

Dr. Temple Grandin lectures to parents and teachers throughout the U.S. on her experiences with autism. She was honored in Time magazine’s 2010 “The 100 Most Influential People in the World.” She wrote a recent column for TakePart.com, part of which is excerpted here as she mentions online learning resources that are helpful to some people with autism. She writes:

I live in two worlds. 

One day I am visiting the engineering campus of a university, and the next day I am at an autism conference. What I have learned from this is that many technical and creative people are often undiagnosed autism spectrum, Asperger, dyslexia, or have learning problems. Many of these successful individuals are aged 40 and older. They are in good jobs, and they have succeeded because their sense of identity is as a statistician, artist, computer programmer, musician, engineer or journalist…

There are a lot of free classes online in all kinds of fields. Some of the best websites are Khan Academy, Coursera, Udacity, MOOC and free classes at MIT and Stanford. The local community college has lots of classes in computer-aided drawing, auto mechanics, welding, electrician, and many other fields. There are some good free drawing programs online, such as Sketchup.

We need to tap into the vast pool of retired people to get the kids who are quirky and different turned on to their gifts. Retired artists, professors, engineers, and other professionals could mentor these students.

via TakePart.com