[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 122 (Thursday, July 31, 2014)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1293]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE GLOBAL CHALLENGE OF AUTISM

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 31, 2014

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, the global incidence of autism 
is steadily increasing. About 1 in 68 children has been identified with 
autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, according to estimates from the 
Center for Disease Control's Autism and Developmental Disabilities 
Monitoring Network. ASD is reported to occur in all racial, ethnic, and 
socioeconomic groups, but is almost 5 times more common among boys (1 
in 42) than among girls (1 in 189).
   Studies in Asia, Europe, and North America have identified 
individuals with ASD with an average of about 1% of the population. The 
prevalence of autism in Africa is unknown, but there is no reason to 
believe that it is any different than other parts of the world. A new 
study recently found that each case of autism costs $2.4 million over a 
lifetime, including the expense of special education and lost 
productivity for their parents. Meanwhile, 85 percent of autistic 
adults are jobless or underemployed.
   It is, therefore imperative that people with ASD are empowered to be 
self-sufficient so that they can not only earn money to meet their own 
needs, but also so they can utilize the talents they possess to 
contribute to society at large. A hearing that I held last week 
examined some innovative strategies to achieve this goal.
   SAP, a global software company, is working to rectify this problem. 
SAP partnered with Thorkil Sonne, CEO and Founder of Specialisterne, to 
develop its highly successful ``Autism at Work'' program. Mr. Sonne, 
whose 17-year-old son Lars is autistic, realized that, while those with 
autism might lack the social skills recruiters are looking for, they 
possess many attributes high on their radar as well: intelligence and 
memory, the ability to see patterns and attention to detail on 
repetitive tasks. He reasoned that it would be phenomenal if we could 
use skills like we see among people with autism in software testing, 
data analysis, and quality control. He said that there is no reason why 
we should leave these people unemployed when they have so much talent 
and there are so many vacant jobs in the high-tech sector. SAP and Mr. 
Sonne provided further details of their extraordinary program at last 
week's hearing.
   In her testimony, Theresa Hussman of Autism Society of America said, 
``In school, at work and in the community, people with autism are often 
faced with segregation, low expectations, impoverished conditions and 
denial of opportunity that a society committed to civil rights should 
find unacceptable. Today, if you are an adult living with autism, you 
will likely be unemployed or vastly under-employed, living well below 
the poverty level, and denied access to affordable housing and so much 
more.''
   Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Ron Suskind testified in part 
about success with an ``affinity'' approach, and he says, ``for every 
visible deficit, there is an equal and opposing strength. This 
population is just like the rest of us, only less so and more so. The 
question increasingly is not `if' these `more so' qualities exist, but 
`where'?''
   Autism used to be described as a disorder characterized by delays or 
abnormal functioning before the age of three years in social 
interaction, communication or restricted, repetitive and stereotyped 
patterns of behavior, interests and activities. More recently, 
behavioral scientists describe a range of such behavior now referred to 
as autism spectrum disorder, which includes a more high-functioning 
version known as Asperger syndrome.
   It is medically possible to diagnose someone with ASD as early as 18 
months or even younger, and a reliable diagnosis can be made by the age 
of two. However, symptoms might not present themselves until later in 
life. Those with some form of autism may never be diagnosed at all.
   This has led to a debate over famous, productive people, often 
considered geniuses, who appear to have symptoms of autism, especially 
Asperger syndrome. In the April 30, 2003 issue of New Scientist 
magazine, writer Hazel Muir revealed the debate over whether geniuses 
Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton had Asperger syndrome.
   Simon Baron Cohen, an autism expert based at Cambridge University, 
and Oxford University mathematician Ioan James speculated that Newton, 
the noted English physicist and mathematician, exhibited Asperger 
traits such as hardly speaking, forgetting to eat and giving scheduled 
lectures even to an empty room. Einstein, the German physicist, was 
said to have obsessively repeated sentences until he was seven years 
old and was a notoriously confusing lecturer. Both were highly 
productive scientists, perhaps because of the kind of focus ASD 
produces rather than in spite of it.
   In a February 2, 2005, report on CNBC, anchor Sue Herara presented 
an interview with 2002 Nobel laureate Vernon L. Smith in which he spoke 
of the way in which his autism has allowed him to excel. ``I can switch 
out and go into a concentrated mode and the world is completely shut 
out,'' Smith is quoted as saying. ``If I'm writing something, nothing 
else exists.''
   During the interview, Smith, who won the Nobel Prize for inventing 
the field of experimental economics, admitted that he is sometimes 
``not there'' in social situations. He said that teaching had forced 
him to be more social, but it was only because he was talking about 
issues on which he was already focused.
   I raise the issue of intelligence and functionality because we too 
often see people with ASD as victims who must be cared for when the 
focus their condition produces may allow them to be highly successful 
in certain endeavors. When we begin to look at people with ASD in this 
light, we can better see how they can be enabled to contribute to 
society. It just requires understanding of their potential as well as 
their limitations.
   Many fields involving mathematics and science would allow for the 
intense focus exhibited by many people with ASD to be quite useful. 
Think also of fields of analysis--intelligence, actuary science, and 
other positions requiring what we commonly call ``numbers crunching.'' 
The ability to analyze data and see patterns most people would not 
recognize would be invaluable in analytical jobs.
   As Nobel laureate Vernon Smith said, his disconnection from social 
relationships enables him to think outside the box, as it were, without 
concern for violating social norms. Smith found his condition to be an 
advantage in enabling greater creativity. In our increasingly technical 
world, people with ASD actually are becoming more valuable, if we can 
help them overcome social disconnection and allow them to find fields 
in which what we have thought to be their disability is actually their 
advantage.
   We hope today's hearing can be instructive in at least initiating a 
change in perspective on what people with ASD can do to help themselves 
and to make a contribution to society as a whole. We must not continue 
to waste the talents of people who could make their lives and ours much 
better.
   Finally, I'd like to thank the amazing group of individuals who 
testified last week who made a historic difference in the lives of 
those on spectrum.
   As Michael Rosanoff put it in his testimony ``our mission at Autism 
Speaks is to change the future for all who struggle with autism 
spectrum disorders.'' Each of you on the expert witness panel did just 
that.