A personal observation. If I could predict one of the biggest changes that we will see over the next ten years, it will be that the way we understand autism will improve and it will change the way we relate to, and value skills.
I’m not saying this only as an appeal for compassion. Understanding autism will give organisations an advantage. It will give them access to skills that competitors who get it will not have.
As David a Mitchell (the novelist, not the comedian) says, we should think of it “less as a cognitive disability and more as a communicative disability”, and let autistic people “out of infantilisation prison and allow them full human credentials, which they’re too often denied”.
I think this may be particularly important for the entertainment sector too – particularly in some of the technical areas where an ability to perceive things that others can’t is useful.