Job Placement Program Empowering Adults With Autism

[AGXStarseed]

(Not written by me)


PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – A job placement program that started at Delmarva is now expanding and its empowering adults with autism.

Kaylin Morris is a contract worker for the Exelon company Delmarva Power through the job placement company The Precisionists. She’s one of 12 high-functioning autistic adults employed as part of a pilot partnership program.

“They are productive, they’re effective, they are making us a better company,” said Gary Stockbridge, Delmarva Power region president.

Which is why Exelon is expanding its program to its sister utilities: Atlantic City Electric in South Jersey and Pepco in Maryland and D.C.

The goal is to offer steady work to dozens of autistic adults.

They say what makes them great candidates is their strong attention to detail.

“Other people might call it OCD, or obsessive-compulsive disorder, but for people on the spectrum, it’s a joy to find that one or two things that might be off in like a thousand,” said Michael Stat.

Stat knows that joy very well. He was diagnosed with autism 10 years ago when he was 26.

“As a kid, it wasn’t even on people’s lips, like people didn’t even know what autism even was unless it was somebody who was totally nonverbal, so I mean just being here and being a part of this, it’s just extremely exciting,” he said.

A similar sentiment shared by Morris. She was one of the original four hired in June.

“It’s helped my life a whole lot. I was looking for a job for probably three years or so before I found this place,” said Morris.

Like most of her coworkers, Morris has Asperger’s syndrome.

“Some of the struggles that I had with the social barriers with Asperger’s being on the spectrum, a lot of things float on top of it like depression; anxiety disorders all sorts of stuff,” Morris said.

It’s actually not all work and no play, Kaylin actually has another special skill: she draws caricatures and in her spare time she drew all of her coworkers in this office.

“Pretty much since I was a toddler. I’ve been drawing faces,” she says. “It can really focus on our skillset and less on our social skills and more on what we can achieve.”


Source: Job Placement Program Empowering Adults With Autism

 

[Crossbreed]

I'm surprised that the article still referenced Aspergers. Most NT venues that I have recently participated in have insisted on the ΨC [psychologically correct ] ASD, instead.

 

[pjcnet]

Sounds good as long as it's real work that isn't just an insult to the employees.

I say this as there was a place of employment near myself that specifically offered work to disabled, mentality ill or autistic people who had been out of employment for sometime, I even got offered a position there years ago and declined telling them it was an insult to my intelligence as I knew about the position from people who did take up the offer.

Basically you would sit all day sorting out different types of bolts, putting the same ones together and that was it. There was even incentives to be the "employee" who sorted the most in a certain period and they kept individual scores to see who could beat their own record. It did suit a couple of people I spoke to, but to offer it to myself was a complete and utter insult and in this case it was also only classed as a volunteer position, although the employees apparently got "generous" expenses, well that's if you think around £5 a day is generous lol.

The reason I refer to the example above as an insult is it's in my opinion a job created just for the sake of it so the employees feel they're achieving something, when it has no real purpose. If they really wanted to sort bolts efficiently they would simply use a machine to do it that would do what a whole room full of employees could achieve in a day in minutes, or even seconds. It's a bit like giving a large group of people a pair of scissors and telling them to keep a large area of grass well cut and by the time they'd completed it, it would need cutting again so they'd be permanently employed even though just one person could cut all the grass with the right equipment in less than an hour. But in a way sorting bolts is even worse since I also have to wonder why the bolts needed sorting in the first place, why and how did they get mixed up? I suspect they were mixed up on purpose just to create pointless jobs to keep these people occupied and feeling like they were really achieving something. Lol, the employees where probably always sorting exactly the same bolts that had been mixed up again from the previous day. Okay if it makes some people happy then I suppose that's fine, but in my opinion they must have very limited mental capacity not to question this and also not to be bored out of their brains doing such a pointless repetitive task.

Here is another example, my very low functioning autistic brothers were given part time volunteer gardening jobs for a while, but a supervisor had to follow each employee around constantly showing them what to do which would be done very slowly and they'd have long breaks due to having very short attention spans, but if the supervisor decided to do the work alone instead they would get a whole days work done in 15 minutes, although the supervisor would be far too well paid and qualified to do such basic gardening tasks in the first place. In that situation it is good to keep my brothers occupied as they have limited understanding and would never realise that their job was only created for their benefit and has no real purpose, but it wouldn't be suitable for someone who was on the higher functioning end of the autistic spectrum.

 

[SunnyDay16]

Sounds good as long as it's real work that isn't just an insult to the employees.

I say this as there was a place of employment near myself that specifically offered work to disabled, mentality ill or autistic people who had been out of employment for sometime, I even got offered a position there years ago and declined telling them it was an insult to my intelligence as I knew about the position from people who did take up the offer.

Basically you would sit all day sorting out different types of bolts, putting the same ones together and that was it. There was even incentives to be the "employee" who sorted the most in a certain period and they kept individual scores to see who could beat their own record. It did suit a couple of people I spoke to, but to offer it to myself was a complete and utter insult and in this case it was also only classed as a volunteer position, although the employees apparently got "generous" expenses, well that's if you think around £5 a day is generous lol.

The reason I refer to the example above as an insult is it's in my opinion a job created just for the sake of it so the employees feel they're achieving something, when it has no real purpose. If they really wanted to sort bolts efficiently they would simply use a machine to do it that would do what a whole room full of employees could achieve in a day in minutes, or even seconds. It's a bit like giving a large group of people a pair of scissors and telling them to keep a large area of grass well cut and by the time they'd completed it, it would need cutting again so they'd be permanently employed even though just one person could cut all the grass with the right equipment in less than an hour. But in a way sorting bolts is even worse since I also have to wonder why the bolts needed sorting in the first place, why and how did they get mixed up? I suspect they were mixed up on purpose just to create pointless jobs to keep these people occupied and feeling like they were really achieving something. Lol, the employees where probably always sorting exactly the same bolts that had been mixed up again from the previous day. Okay if it makes some people happy then I suppose that's fine, but in my opinion they must have very limited mental capacity not to question this and also not to be bored out of their brains doing such a pointless repetitive task.

Here is another example, my very low functioning autistic brothers were given part time volunteer gardening jobs for a while, but a supervisor had to follow each employee around constantly showing them what to do which would be done very slowly and they'd have long breaks due to having very short attention spans, but if the supervisor decided to do the work alone instead they would get a whole days work done in 15 minutes, although the supervisor would be far too well paid and qualified to do such basic gardening tasks in the first place. In that situation it is good to keep my brothers occupied as they have limited understanding and would never realise that their job was only created for their benefit and has no real purpose, but it wouldn't be suitable for someone who was on the higher functioning end of the autistic spectrum.

That is really stupid and super insulting. It's basically saying that aspies are unable to do anything beyond pointless menial work. There's no point in job placement programs if they can't provide jobs that actually are there for a purpose and require some training/studying.