Part of an excerpt from Temple Grandin’s new book:
If people can consciously recognize the strengths and weaknesses in their ways of thinking, they can then seek out the right kinds of minds for the right reasons. And if they do that, then they’re going to recognize that sometimes the right mind can belong only to an autistic brain.
Dreher shares his thoughts:
I remember a few years back, when our son Matthew was suffering a great deal from his Asperger’s and related conditions (sensory processing disorder) — which meant that his parents, especially his mother, struggling with him were suffering too — I thought that there was no amount of giftedness that was worth what that child was going through. He’s a really intelligent kid, but I would have traded that genius in a heartbeat for respite for him from what really was torment. He has grown out of most of the bad stuff, thank God, and I can see easily now how his mild autism can be a tremendous intellectual and vocational asset to him, depending on the field he goes into, even as it remains to some degree a social problem. Put simply, he sees things that most of us don’t, and he sees them as a result of the way his brain is wired.
This is a gift. It is at times a terrible gift, but it is a gift.
The Dish 