It’s all about hope. To lose hope is a terrible thing. Therefore autistic superpowers give us hope for those who lack something in their makeup. No one really wants to say “that child is permanently impaired and will lead a life defined by their limitations.”

Fortunately I don’t think this is entirely delusional. The brain is wonderfully adapable and most children can be reached. It may take a while but if you find what makes a child tick, what motivates them, they can flourish. However in most cases this is not a superpower per se.

As someone with autism who has only ever had a natural ability at artistic skills and word puzzles I’m sort of on the fence about savantism or splinter skills, as they are sometimes called.

Through my mimicry of certain author’s styles I learnt how to write. I’ve been struggling with reading and writing all my life even after all the English remedial classes. Now I’m trying to write my own novel that will hopefully give people a glimpse into the everyday experience of an autistic. Those things the experts can only guess through observation and research studies.

My skills to me personally are compensation for my lack of interpersonal skills, severe sensory processing issues and even basic skills that I still haven’t got the hang of. To me they offer me comfort. Sometimes savants can feel me with hope or with dread.
But on those really stressful days it’s just good to know I have some talents. Not savantism by any means, unless you count barely a second passing in between looking for words on a find-a-word puzzle, which helps me block out distressing sensory information.

As for Touch…I was a bit disappointed. One, because they could say Jake had special needs more than being autistic which must just be such a horrible thing to call a child. There’s still a stigma attached to autism that says we are these empty vessels with no emotion and all we care about doing are those silly purposeless rituals. Those silly purposeless rituals are actually quite calming but there is more to us than them.
It just made me think of Indigo Children which people believe in. A lot of people actually believe autistic people can be psychic. And everything being connected it was just illogical to me. Maybe I’m just too literal and boring for the show.

I think the math genius stereotype has been done to death too. Yeah it exists but some of us are actually quite talented artists too.

Ever since my older son was diagnosed, I absolutely cringe at Rain Man references. You may recall that in the toothpick-counting scene, the Tom Cruise character’s perception of his brother completely changes. Suddenly, he’s not just a middle-aged burden with a really rigid TV-watching schedule and intense preferences in underwear. Suddenly, he sees that Raymond has a skill that is useful, that he has something to contribute. And I see this pattern over and over in media portrayals of the person with autism. Here’s a person who is uncommunicative and isolated, often with behaviors that are painful to watch, a person who seemingly has no way to connect with the rest of us. But wait! He can play Mozart by ear! He can draw the entire London Underground map from memory! He can count cards in a casino! NOW suddenly he’s worth a second look and worth getting to know. Now the typical person has a way of connecting with the person with autism. In reality, connecting with many people with autism can be difficult, but it is intensely worthwhile for everyone involved. No superpowers required.

On the other hand, we don’t have enough accurate portrayals of people with autism to counter the ones with hidden powers. Agree with Anne that it would be great to see stories written by autistic people themselves.

As the parent of a non-verbal child with autism, I do spend a lot of time wondering what he is thinking about and how he sees the world. With all his daily struggles to get through a complicated and overwhelming world, and people who underestimate what he can do, these stories are fantasies where we can say “see – he’s smarter than the rest of you.” There are stories like this everywhere. But of course, I know my son doesn’t need to have special powers to be a smart, wonderful person exactly who he is.