'Agricultural specialisterne': rural employment revolution for those with Autism

[Visionary7903]

What Eric Chessen (as well as other Autism Exercise experts I will write about in future posts) promotes is a change to the stereotype of a person on the Autism Spectrum. In the video on the professional surfer Clay Marzo (Just Add Water), there are comments like he breaks down stereotypes - as an ultrafit professional athlete, doing something for his career that few can imagine someone on the Autism Spectrum could do. It is refreshing and opens minds up about people’s capabilities.

At the moment, and in the past, when people talk about Autism, they might think of Temple Grandin, or a socially-impaired computer nerd (if they think of someone with Asperger’s Syndrome), or Rain Man. Rain Man was a 1988 film starring Dustin Hoffman as an Autistic Savant, a character largely inspired by the real life Kim Peek…

…The film won four Oscars…

…Mr. Peek was not autistic – not all savants are autistic and not all autistics are savants – but he was born with severe brain abnormalities that impaired his physical coordination and made ordinary reasoning difficult. He could not dress himself or brush his teeth without help. He found metaphoric language incomprehensible and conceptualization baffling.

But with an astonishing skill that allowed him to read facing pages of a book at once – one with each eye – he read as many as 12,000 volumes. Even more remarkable, he could remember what he had read.

[Peek] had perhaps the world’s most capacious memory for facts.

…In ‘Rain Man,’ the autistic character, Raymond Babbitt, has been institutionalized since he was very young but is reunited with a cynical younger brother, Charlie (played by Tom Cruise), who had forgotten about his brother’s existence. (The title comes from Raymond’s recollection of the infant Charlie’s name for him.) The two men take a cross-country trip, and fraternal reconciliation ensues.

The movie, a critical and box office success, was not based on Mr. Peek’s life, but in preparing for the role, Mr. Hoffman visited with Mr. Peek and incorporated many of his characteristics – a shambling gait, peculiar hand movements and occasional blunt utterances – into the character of Raymond.

…In the wake of ‘Rain Man,’ Mr. Peek became something of a celebrity, emerging from his shell to travel around the country giving demonstrations of his talent and advocating tolerance for the disabled…

(source: Kim Peek, Inspiration for ‘Rain Man,’ Dies at 58 - The New York Times)