Placement Service a Boon for People with Asperger's {denmark}

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http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,817166,00.html


akob Carlsen /Agentur Focus / DER SPIEGEL
A company in Denmark helps place people with Asperger's syndrome in jobs that benefit from their uncommon traits.

After working at the CERN research center near Geneva for a decade, where he was part of efforts to understand the origins of the universe, 49-year-old physicist Niels Kjaer returned home to his native Copenhagen. There were no newspaper job listings for people with Ph.D.s in particle physics, and he had no contacts at local universities. Since Kjaer has difficulty interacting with others, he decided to take a job driving a taxi in Copenhagen. "Okay, fine," he told himself, "I'll just work the night shift." Within six months, he was suffering from depression.

After Thorkil Sonne, the technical director of the Danish communications company TDC, had heard one too many times about how poorly his young son was fitting in at kindergarten, he and his wife went to a psychologist for advice. Instead of tips on how to raise their child, they received a diagnosis. Their son had Asperger's syndrome, the psychologist said, a form of autism. Sonne and his wife were told that people with Asperger's usually have no problems concentrating and had very good memories, but that they have trouble when it comes to matters of the heart, making it difficult for them to laugh at funny things or comfort those who are sad. This inability to relate to others, the psychologist said, makes children with Asperger's syndrome outsiders.

After hearing words like autism and outsider, the father was flabbergasted. There wasn't much that could be done, the psychologist said.

Recognizing Oft-Hidden Talents

Today, Niels Kjaer, the particle physicist, no longer drives a taxi. And that has something to do with the fact that Thorkil Sonne didn't take the psychologist's advice. Instead, he decided that something could be done for people with Asperger's, after all.