Ms Marie Devitt:

Exactly. That kind of learning is as important as the skills. We have had to go in a number of times. These are young adults so if someone wants to have ten espressos in a day, he or she just needs to know about the health issues.

Some companies have paid for topping up a card for food for the young people, which they do not do for other employees. One young man goes into the canteen regularly and asks to have it put on his tab. His mother rang to say she did not realise there was a tab in the office. Out of kindness, the manager was paying for the food but what that meant was that the young person did not understand that this had to be paid for by someone. There is incidental learning like that involving people acting a certain way out of the goodness of their hearts and in the belief they are doing the right thing. However, they should treat people with autism the same as they treat other employees. They should treat them as adults and not cocoon them too much.