Asperger's Syndrome and employment
Hello All,
I got interested in the identity and employment through my PhD when I interviewed people with Asperger's Syndrome very few of them were working. The National Autistic Society of the United Kingdom suggests that only 15% of people with a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome are employed (accessed 2nd of Feb 2013 from http://www.autism.org.uk/living-with...mployment.aspx).
No IsuzuRover I do not know what methodology and sample size the National Autistic Society used :). I am still waiting for the Department of Human Services to respond to my request about the Australian statistics on the employment rate in Australia of people on the Autism spectrum. They have not contacted me back and it has been some months now.
Anyway, there are research documents that suggest that people form a strong sense of their identity from work. Because only 15% of adults with Asperger's have full time employment in the UK it denies the opportunity for people to develop a sense of competence and self worth -also factors in research that have been associated with being employed. Trying to get figures of the rate of ASD in Australia is not easy - for various reasons. However the Center of Disease Control in the USA cites the following information
Data and Statistics, Autism Spectrum Disorders - Centers for ...
www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html Found on: Google, Yahoo! Search
Mar 29, 2012 ... About 1 in 88 children has been identified with an autism spectrum More detail from - http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/20..._disorder.html. So if the Australian rates a similar to the rates in the USA what is the population of Australia and 1 in 88 comes down to ..... subtract from that the people who are under or over the normal working age in Australia and you come up with a figure of ......
It also means that any time you are at an event with 88 people at the venue then one of these people may have some type of an Autism Spectrum Disorder. Some of these people may have a poor employment history, be socially awkward and do too much research about how people form a sense of identity; they may also like restoring Series 3 Land Rovers; and they might post too many documents up on AULRO. One of the one in 88 could even be me!!!
The percentage of these people who have Asperger's Syndrome - a condition which will be taken out of the DSM V and you get an indication of how difficult it is to get the exact numbers of people - however the amount is statistically significant.
Having employment also makes people contributors to society in that people who are employed pay taxes - so the economic loss; let alone the social capital loss is very significant.
Kind Regards
Lionel
Don't I know it...............
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ausfree
To S3ute, the Hunter Valley coalmining and destruction of this beautiful valley is testamount to what you are saying. You have to visit this valley to see the devastation that is going on. When a westerly wind blows the dust can be seen going over our house and we are miles away. Coal dust has even been reported at Tea Gardens on the coast of Port Stephens which is probably (at a guess) 150 k's from the nearest open cut mine.
Hello again from Brisbane and thanks.
I do know what you are describing with some genuine familiarity I regret to say.
While the massive coal developments in the Hunter from about the late 1970s has inevitably brought prosperity to the region and probably personally to a few AULRO members who live and work there, it was a very different thing for my own family.
Family settement of grazing land in and around Singleton and later Muswellbrook commenced around 1870, but had pretty much left with limited trace by the end of the 1990s, largely as a result of the coal and power development.
Expansion of the State coal mines near Hebden in the 1960s took a couple of properties, but these were offset by local land purchases in other parts of the region. Lake St Clair was built to supply water into the mines and associated electrical development and inconveniently for us happens to sit atop my late grandfather's property (St Clair) and the properties of several uncles and cousins. The resulting diaspora to the Peel, Namoi, North Coast and elsewhere, effectively broke a longstanding network of family contacts. The rapid expansion of the mines between Singleton and Muswellbrook knocked another couple of properties out of the system and these could only be offset by shifting much further to the west around Narrabri.
For myself, my parents owned a couple of farms in the hills just to the east of Muswellbrook in the valley just over the hills from Liddell power station and at night you could hear the plant quite clearly. The dust etc was also getting pretty ordinary as was the constant threat of having another transmission line come through the valley and eventually having to put up with a pylon on the flat below the homestead - having seen two lines go up in the adjacent valleys over the years, we were likely to be next. There were no coal reserves under either farm, but one sat over a very rich limestone deposit for which the state issued prospecting licenses in the early 2000s. That was enough and, after my Dad passed away, I could see no future in it and sold out. In doing that, I was one of the last of the family to go.....
Miss the landscape that I knew in the 1960s and 70s, but not necessarily what is there now.
Cheers,
