Autistic Kids

[Darth Biscuit]

As some of you may know, my wife is a spec ed teacher and works specifically with Autistic kids a lot...

 

She's working at a summer camp right now for Autistic kids... and she's telling me stories about these kids.

 

All different types, some quiet, some aggressive, but they all seem to have some sort of gift....

 

 

This one kid... 9 years old, but loves to draw... currently he only draws either super heroes or super villains...

 

 

 

 

I thought that was pretty damned good for 9 years old.

 

 

 

Also, they had a magician come to entertain them earlier this week...

 

As part of the show, the magician burned the treasure map he had showed the kids and was going to make it magically re-appear.

 

Well, one of the kids, 10 years old... got upset and told him he could re-draw the map...  and he did.  Completely from memory after seeing it one time for about 30 seconds... apparently this kid has an eidetic memory.

 

 

It's so weird how these kids can have such disabilities and gifts all rolled into one.

[CCS]

I thought for sure this was going to be about Chris Chan

[Panthro]

My aunt was special ed in NYC. She is a saint and a wonderful person and i can say the same for your wife. ..being married to you also assists in said sainthood :)

[Darth Biscuit]

My aunt was special ed in NYC. She is a saint and a wonderful person and i can say the same for your wife. ..being married to you also assists in said sainthood :)

 

 

I'm OFFENDED!

 

Yeah, you're probably right.

 

 

I know for a fact that I could not do her job.  She has all of my patience and probably the patience of 10 more people.

[SCP]

There is a real success story in my industry down in Anderson, SC. Biscuit, your wife might be interested in this story. Walgreens built a state of the art distribution center that employs folks with verying degrees of handicaps and disabilities. It is their top performing DC and other Fortune 500 companies have followed suit. The brains behind this facility was Randy Lewis who has since retired. I saw him speak a few years ago at a WERC conference and was blown away. Lowes has built a DC using the concept of automation and dedicated workers with disabilities as well. The enthusiasm and appreciation the employees have for something simple like having a job is amazing. Turnover is low, absenteeism is low, and productivity is high. Plus the people have a feeling of accomplishment and can take home a paycheck. Here is the link to the ABC story but there are multiple videos and articles about it.

Randy still travels the country speaking on this topic because his son has autism. If he is ever in the region he is worth seeing or speaking to.

[Darth Biscuit]

That might be the same guy she was telling me about yesterday...  some guy who hired an autistic guy to do graphic design and discovered that for jobs that don't require personal interaction they were the best employees he'd ever had.  Now he's hired like 150 autistic people to work for him.

[SCP]

Could be. He literally changed how the industry views employees. It's quite an amazing story. Because of him thousands of people that would have never worked are making a living.

[Captroop]

Autistic people are truly fascinating, especially the artists:

 

[Panthro]

Autistic people are truly fascinating, especially the artists:

 

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[Darth Biscuit]

I've seen that guy before... simply brilliant.

[TheRumGone]

incredible

[pstall]

I have so many friends whose kids have this. You have to be specia to raise someone special. I hope one day they can figure out what really trully causes it.

Great stuff.

[PhillyB]

that is friggin cool

[LifeisaGarden]

The school my daughter goes to is a private specialized school for kids with learning differences. Most who go there are dyslexic like my girl, but there are also high functioning autistic children who attend.  They are amazing little creatures!  

 

One boy, is 12 same age as my daughter, we call him garmin cause he is a walking, talking, real life GPS. When we go on field trips we fuss over who gets to take him in the car so we don't get lost, he is amazing to listen and watch. lol

 

Another boy same age, could put the history guy on pawn stars out of a job, he knows his world history better than google. Sometimes I google questions to ask him and he gets them right every single time. When he sees me, he asks me if I have questions for him. 

 

I could go on and on with the stories.