Dr. Pat Matthews:

Autism is a very complex problem and embraces all parts of disability. There are mental health problems and language and communication barriers within autism. They are all very specific. Autism cannot be encompassed just with the term "disability"; it is a question of more than disability. There are people with autism who have normal and higher intelligence, and there are those who can hold down jobs. Professor Michael Fitzgerald once said that if we did not have high-functioning people with autism, Silicon Valley would be closed down tomorrow. These are people who are fixated on certain things. The problem is that they do not have social skills and do not know how to mix or live. They are loners. We do nothing to support them at all. They are intelligent. The population of people with autism encompasses all levels of intelligence, from the very severely affected at one end of the spectrum – the profoundly autistic – to those we might say are gifted in one way but yet not able to live in the world as we are. They do not have the skills. This is why autism is so complex that it cannot just be lumped in with disability in disability legislation. There are too many variants of autism syndrome to enable one disability area to encompass all the needs. It just will not happen.