Roger Ross Williams Quotes

If we think about the autism spectrum as involving a very strong drive to systemize, that can have very positive consequences for the individual and for society. The downside is that when you try to systemize certain parts of the world like people and emotions, those sorts of phenomena are less lawful and harder to systemize.

Autistic children are extremely bright if you can connect to them and bring them into our world. Socially it's really hard for them, but it can happen.

One in 150 kids is autistic these days. The autism spectrum is growing.

The thing about being autistic is that you gradually get less and less autistic, because you keep learning, you keep learning how to behave. It's like being in a play; I'm always in a play.

In fact, when we as neuro-typical people encounter a person with autism spectrum syndrome who's always been that way it is that we have to adjust. Just because we can read people with autism correctly, whatever that word is why do we always default to saying, 'Well, that kid is not normal?' What is normal?

I treasure my meetings with individuals affected by autism - parents, children, teachers and friends. Their strength is inspiring. They deserve all possible opportunities for education, employment and integration.

Sometimes people say that kids with autism aren't capable of love. That's ridiculous. My son loves deeply. He just doesn't communicate well.

What is important is to treat everyone like an individual and learning not to generalize autism. With autism, people make assumptions, but it's very broad, and everyone's so different. You have to treat each person as an individual.

I've worked with tons of people that I know who are on the spectrum - but now I think severe autism has really increased.

Having two children with autism, it makes you really think about how we do relate to each other.

As a parent with a child with autism, it's been really tough to experience your child having autism.

A diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome can be useful to help a person understand why they have had difficulties.

When you've grown up always knowing that there's something that seemed to be different about you from most people - and not being able to understand until my mid-forties that what we were talking about here was autism - I've had to learn an awful let about myself and what I can and can't do and what I can or can't cope with.

I'm hoping that autism is going to get to that same point, where it becomes quite ordinary to say, 'I have autism,' or 'I have Asperger's syndrome,' and that there will be many more resources available to make life easier for people on the autistic spectrum.

By looking at autistic kids, you can't tell when you're working with them who you're going to pull out, who is going to become verbal and who's not. And there seem to be certain kids who, as they learn more and more, they get less autistic acting, and they learn social skills enough so that they can turn out socially normal.

Asperger's doesn't define me. It's a condition that I have to live with and work through, but I feel more relaxed about myself. People will have a greater understanding of who I am and why I do the things I do.

People with autism aren't interested in social chit-chat.

The challenge and the goal was to get inside Owen's [Suskind] world, because I really wanted to see it through his point of view. To achieve that naturalism, I used a screen in front of a camera as I interviewed him

I think that the definition of autism is too broad. You got to remember, autism definition is a behavioral profiling.

Working with children with autism has provided me with an opportunity to see the world in a different way. I see them strive to overcome obstacles and persevere, and learn to persevere myself. They are my inspiration.

I had to introduce a lot of people into my writing environment which I thought at first I would find really difficult, but I actually found that I loved it. It meant that I was meeting different people; it meant that I was expressing myself in different ways.

A woman told me her child was autistic, and I thought she said artistic. So I said, 'Oh great. I'd like to see some of the things he's done.

The thing is, autism is a big spectrum. Going from folks who remain nonverbal, all the way up to, ya know, famous scientists and musicians. And we've got to work on strengths. We also have to work on teaching basic manners and skills.

On the other hand, I think cats have Asperger's. Like me, they're very smart. And like me, sometimes they simply need to be left alone.

There is no substitute for practical experience, and if you want to write about people you ought to put down that comic book and go out and meet some of them rather than studying the way that Stan Lee or Chris Claremont depict people.