Expert: Trey McGowan - 9/1/2007

Question
Hello Trey,
I have a 3 1/2 year old boy who has been diagnosed with autism.  He is high
functioning with most of his delays in language, social skills and pretend
play.  He seems very intelligent and has no real sensory issues.  My question
is...what is the future outcome of children like this?  I have researched online
and in books for statistics of how many actually live and work independently
but can't find much.  I guess I need to know what my child might be like as an
adult.  What is the typical outcome?  He is starting in home therapy now and
early childhood preschool next week.
Thanks for your time
Kim

Answer
Hello, Kim!

First off, let me congratulate you on your research and your early intervention. I'm sure that it will make all the difference in the world to help him through his early difficulties.

Now, to answer your question, high functioning autistics have a very good prognosis toward living and working outside the house. There are quite a few autistics who have managed to go far thanks to intervention and to education. With how new the studies on Asperger's is, there aren't a lot of clinical examples of how far people have gone yet, but there are many people who have been tentatively (and some not-so-tentatively) diagnosed who have managed to go a long way in life, working around their difficulties or using them to their advantage.

In short (too late, I know), the prognosis is generally good for later in life, so long as the developmental disorder is worked around (or with) to get what they want.

Some famous ASD individuals for you to examine their works, if you want to look for books:

http://www.templegrandin.com/
Dr. Temple Grandin . Probably one of the best known of the 'successful autistics' out there. Her books are wonderful. I highly suggest getting her first book: Labeled Autistic.

Satoshi Tajiri: Creator and designer of the top hit Gameboy game: Pokemon.

Dawn Prince-Hughes, PHD: an anthropologist and primatologist associated with the Jane Goodall institute.

Here's Wikipedia's list, if you want to look any more people on it up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_on_the_autistic_spectrum


Actual statistics, unfortunately, are difficult to get. The study of autism and Asperger's is fairly new, and they haven't done a lot of hard numbers on this yet as the diagnosis is in its relative infancy. So that part, I unfortunately can't help out on.

Hoping I was able to answer your question,

Trey