Are We Missing Out on the Potential of Science Students with Savant Autism?

Two of my most trusted longtime occasional advisors on how to help David achieve his full potential as a scientist have been Dr. Temple Grandin and Dr. Darold Treffert. According to these two experts on the subject, my son , Dr. David M. Nisson appears to be the first publicly recognized American with More-Profound, "Level 2-3", aide-dependent autism to earn a doctorate in physics from a highly-ranked university. Sure, physics and math students with high-functioning autism is a stereotype ("Big Bang Theory", right?). But as a child, David's autism was so profoundly affected that I was told to "consider an institution" for him. This advice was given me because David's condition of super-high scientific intelligence mixed with dangerous levels of autistic distractibility ("Savant Syndrome Autism) is rare... the educational system just isn't set up to accommodate people like my son.

Although their condition's rare, I suspect that there are many "David Nissons" out there - mopping floors, stocking shelves, doing factory work, whose much-needed mathematical and/or scientific skills are wasted because our educational system is wasteful?

Here's what I mean:
Throughout David's childhood, teachers and school administrators urged me to repress his interest in math and science, and to set about preparing him for an adulthood spent in unskilled, manual labor, supplemented by SSI, with supports from IHSS. They warned me that were my service as David's aide through college to result in his earning degrees to prove successful, he would lose his government supports because he would appear on paper to be higher functioning than is possible for him. What if he didn't end up being able to survive in the workplace? They warned me that this could leave him with neither government assistance nor the capacity to earn enough to survive. In other words, they warned me that for those whose parents plan poorly, a homeless shopping cart awaits.

Well, I prayed about it, ignored their warnings, made it this far, and with God's grace, everything seems to be turning out alright for David. However, as I now deal with the issues of transition that have arisen since David concluded college, it is with heavy heart that I must now warn the parents of the next generation of autistic children with High IQ to be very, very careful as they plan their children's education. Those early advisers were right in warning that the world's best academic schooling won't guarantee survival in the socially and politically complicated workplace. (See Autism Job Club, by Bernick and Holden). In order to create a society realistically able to both educate and then employ the more-profoundly autistic students, much systemic change lies ahead.

David's story elicits the following questions for all of us to discuss as we prepare to either educate, or to abandon, the potential within the Savant Autistic scientists of our future:

• Should I have assured David's future food, housing, and safety protection by denying him an academic education?
• Should I have prepared him for busing tables rather than for writing algorithms? (No offense to those employed as bussers; bussing is noble- and necessary- employment).
• Can our planet and the people dependent upon it afford to waste the scientific resources inside all brains with mathematical skills due to racism, sexism, or in this case, a poorly structured system?                                              

        To quote Charlie Babbitt in the film Rain Man (1988):                                                                                  "That's amazing! He is amazing! He should work for NASA or something like that".

We need to reform the state and federal programs that keep autistic people alive during their transitions from college to employment, so that K-12 staff can feel ethical about encouraging savant autistic students and their families to pursue an academic education.

We then need to fund campus personal assistants to help science and math students at the more-profound level of autism complete their college education, as I did when I put my own career on hold to help my son through college. A combination of Regional Center and IHSS funding helped David and me, but will there be enough in "the pot" for the next generation?

I suspect that David and I may have slipped through the cracks of the system -- little cockroaches that we were... Looking down the decades ahead, I don't think that either my own state (California), nor our nation, has enough in the tax base to fund family members of aide-dependent autistic science students to help them attend college, thereby contributing their much-needed skills to basic science research.

Does this mean we give up on tapping the scientific resources trapped within the brains of America's Savant Autistic students?

Or, is 2 Minutes to Midnight time to establish a new system of coordinated public and private foundations dedicated for the essential task?