As a person with autism himself, he has numerous issues with the article. It is perhaps written with amazing unfeelingness for a professional - or simply amazingly limited perspective. The author, Barbara Cain, seems to have fallen prey to the popular notion that "people with autism" is always equal to "children with autism."
But children with autism grow up.
Many of them grow up to be highly competent. Some even MIT engineers - one MIT alum suggests that
"the 'abnormal' condition known as Asperger's syndrome" could be "remarkably similar to the 'normal' functioning of an engineer's mind" Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2089358,00.html#ixzz2E0vUipCX
Some of them remain little children in men's bodies. Here is a Time magazine book excerpt of a sibling's story of one of them. i don't know any statistics on how many grow up to be like this; probably not as many as Ms Cain, the author of my originally cited Times article above seems to think.
Max is 22. He is in between. He dresses himself. He toilets independently, but gives no clue whether all is well or not in that department. He's still struggling with that 3rd grade reading comprehension. If he could get past that, maybe then the engineer thing.
But there is a long way to go.
And yes, there have been brother inconveniences. But there always are. Has Boom been a victim of his brother's autism?
Not as much as Max has. And will be.
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