Autism Positives
I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and there can be real positives to autism.
Believe me, there really are positives; that is, when it comes to autism. And a great example of that is my friend, Hugh Ross. Uh, perhaps you’ve heard of him. Hugh Ross has a PhD in astrophysics, he is the founder of a ministry called Reasons to Believe and he’s one of the smartest men I know. He and his wife Kathy live in Pasadena, California where for years Hugh has been connected with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. My husband Ken was with Hugh one night when he had a big telescope set up in his backyard. Hugh adjusted the eyepiece, and Ken was able to get a up-close personal look at thousands of stars which were many hundreds of light years away. Hugh kept telling Ken where and which quadrant he should look for certain stars, and he even named those stars. After spending a few minutes stargazing, Ken straightened and he asked Hugh, “Just how many stars do you know by name?” Our friend shrugged his shoulders and smiled, and said, “Oh, I don’t know, maybe, maybe several thousand.”
When Ken told me that, my jaw dropped. How in the world did Hugh Ross learn about all those stars, planets, and constellations, all of them that he knows by heart? When I questioned Ken about this he said, “Joni, you’ll never believe what Hugh told me. He said that when he was a student, and even after graduate school when he worked in astrophysics, he would stay glued to his computer and his telescope for hour after hour after hour, long into the night. And he was able to do this, Hugh said, because he has autism.” I said, “What?” Then Ken went on to explain that one of the behaviors of people with autism is that they can easily block out any social contact and stay fixed and focused on one project for days. Hugh Ross’ autism (in fact I think he’s been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, to be specific) that autistic behavior has enabled Hugh to focus on his work in a way that, well, many of his fellow astrophysicists just couldn’t.
And I thought that was amazing, and I told Hugh that the next time I saw him. He explained that most people would think that autism would be a detriment in learning a skill, but for him, it is the very thing that helped him memorize the names of thousands of stars and become a world–class astrophysicist and an expert on the heavens. And that’s good news because Hugh Ross and his wife Kathy are avid followers of the Lord Jesus. When he studies the universe, for Hugh it’s a study of God.
But let me say a bit more about autism and its positive aspects. Yes, many people with autism have a great capacity for learning details. They can focus deeply and do not become distracted. But they also have a great capacity to observe things: to listen, and look and learn, and they can absorb and retain facts (many having a superior recall of little details). People with autism can be methodical and creative, and there’s so much more. In fact, if this topic is of any special interest to you, you gotta go to my radio page today at joniradio.org and download a copy of “Autism: The Positives.” It’s a way of understanding and celebrating the different ways people with autism approach life. Just like my friend Hugh Ross. So please don’t forget to visit joniradio.org to get the list of positive aspects of autism and share it with a special-needs family you know who has children with autism. Finally, I’m just so grateful that Hugh Ross is an example of how the Lord is using one man with autism to glorify our great Creator God. Thanks for listening today on Joni and Friends.
© Joni and Friends
Autism: The Positives
Understanding, embracing and celebrating different ways of thinking and doing can release the true power of the autistic mind. Here we look at the positive features of autism.
