science.slashdot.org/story/09/12/09/175245/Company-Trains-the-Autistic-To-Test-Software
Company Trains the Autistic To Test Software on Wednesday December 09, @07:48PM Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday December 09, @07:48PM from the you-got-99-problems-but-a-glitch-aint-one dept.
train high-functioning autistic people as testers for software development companies. The company says autistics have a talent for spotting imperfections, and thrive on predictable, monotonous work. Aspiritech is not the first company to explore the idea of treating this handicap as a resource. Specialisterne, a Danish company founded in 2004, also trains autistics. They hire their workforce out as hourly consultants to do data entry, assembly line jobs and work that many would find tedious and repetitive.
As languages become higher level and more extensible, it is much more important to write code and doc that others can read and understand. The code and doc that others can read and understand, yes, that is tremendously important, and will always be neglected in Dilbert's (and our) world of rushed deadlines, short staffing, and lazy coworkers. If it works, ship it yesterday, oh, and after it's shipped, why isn't the next thing finished yet? Accurate code and doc requires tremendous attention to detail, if you're talking about API level, you need docs that say what the functions and their parameters do, and functions that properly implement that. Rigorous attention to detail is just the beginning - extensive testing, documentation of big picture connections to related parts of the API, and keeping up with the "cutting edge" of efficiency, feature completeness, etc. Most of my coworkers don't have the attention span to complete anything significant at this level of rigor, and the ones who do are pushed by management to "be more productive" rather than make something that actually works 100% correctly.
Homepage Sorry, but the future involves foraging for food and ammo in a post-apocalyptic world. Peak oil happened in 2007, my friend -- be prepared for the consequences.
Sure, there is a wide range of intellectual abilities, but there is a very clear difference from "not good at math" and "crippling mental retardation". Take the convenient wiki definition of "a disorder of neural development that is characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior." Both are textbook examples of masters of social interaction and communication, which is of course the most important trait for someone of their business and marketing ability. I really don't think you understand what Autism is, and it doesn't really help to trivialize it like you are.
Journal Seriously, these guys shouldn't be jumping on a psychological disorder and claiming everyone has it. What they're looking for is the theory of multiple intelligences. A psychological disorder by definition has a significant impact on your everyday functioning, normally to the point where you can't work or go to school as a normal person. But what else do you expect from a guy who performs mental health diagnosis on celebrities?
I mean no offense to those techies who do have actual psychological problems that they battle each and every day with what I say here. In my experience, younger techies seem to have this idea that they are really quirky or have some mental problem. Heck, I'll even admit acted a little foolish in my early IT days to the point where I believed that I was all quirky and crazy. As I got older I realized that I just have some slightly different preference. I don't sleep as much as most people I know, I like to stay up later and don't like to get up early, and I like to learn new things (not a very common trait in America these days, sadly). A few Years ago I worked with two developers who were clearly OCD and had been diagnosed as such. such as "It is really hard for me to get to work on time because of my OCD and ADD". Perhaps the desire to be different or have people think you are stranger than you really are is a type of disease in itself but it seems more of a Prima Donna/Pay attention to me thing in many Techies.
Making your shortcomings "official" makes it easier for others to believe and overlook those shortcomings; however, it makes light of people who suffer from those real disorders. I believe this stereotype stems from associating perfectionism with OCD and being bored with ADD. While many intelligent people do get bored fast and may be perfectionists -- the very definitions of OCD and ADD are almost the opposite of having high fluid intelligence, which is a bit ironic. In real life, personality is NOT a very good indicator of fluid intelligence since personality is mostly a function of crystallized intelligence (which can be confounding). It has been my experience that really gifted individuals that are "quirky" do everything they possibly can to hide their quirks from other people. Their "quirky" side is only revealed in their lifestyle when you really get to know the individual and they let their guard down. In the end, this "quirky" trend is all so Shakespearian to me. The stigma of a genius is often associated with some fatal flaw.
Just like how, due to my personality and skill set, engineering is a more suitable job for me than say pole dancing or drain laying, their personality/skill sets make them more suited to certain jobs over others.
Surely they aren't stating "You're autistic, therefore you should have this job"; rather, they'd be saying "Many people with autism excel at this kind of job, perhaps we should look among them for a suitable employee". Stereotypes don't describe everyone, but they do have their uses.
Seumas (6865) Not nearly as reprehensible as I find every idiot geek out there (many of them, sadly to say, on Slashdot) that seem to have some perverse need to revel in calling themselves autistic -- or at the very least "oh, I like star trek and collecting shit, so I have fucking aspergers". Ever since that "report" came out a few years ago, every single fucktard on the planet has started going around clinging to that like some crazy fucking Munchhausen crazed mother.
This was after my parents kicked me off home when I was 11 years old and per government requirements, I had to go to a different school (which was mostly so that the people there could diagnose me). Later I was moved to normal school, with "aspergers syndrome" stamped on me as a result. Later I read about it and most of the things just doesn't fit. Whenever psychologists and other "experts" describe Asperger's, I recognise absolutely nothing about it. But when someone who has it describes it, I recognise everything. Best description I ever heard was in social situations feeling like an anthropologist on Mars. You know what's going on, you can analyse and understand it, but you're not really part of it. Social situations are hard work for me (or I just ignore them). But other than that, I have no problem functioning normally. But as soon as a psychologist opens his mouth about Asperger's, it turns into some disability that other people have.
What they can't do is redistribute that surplus to employees or owners, as for-profit companies do. They are required to retain the surplus for reinvestment in the business.
Epsilons were bred to be epsilons, which was meant to be, and is, morally reprehensible. Why shouldn't they have better jobs than sacking groceries? And why shouldn't those jobs be in line with their special abilities? The Politically Correct teach us to be "differently abled". If that's really true, then how could jobs in line with those special abilities be bad?
In other words, it's not just putting autistic folks in a place where they can do a good job. It's actually putting them in a place where they can do a better job than the rest of us, so long as their manager gets training on how to deal with their quirks, and they're kept far away from customers.
Homepage High Functioning Autism isn't really a condition that impairs people from doing more complex work. It's really similar to Aspergers Syndrome, and people with these two conditions are the kinds of people who would can get good educations and be great programmers.
I'm sure it i...
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