Ron Brix’s longtime job as a computer systems developer for Wrigley, the gum and candy maker, required intense attention to detail, single-minded focus and a willingness to work on something repetitively until perfect.

The secret he credits to his success? Autism.

Brix, age 54, was diagnosed in 2001 with Asperger Syndrome, a form of autism often marked by the exact traits that help make him an ideal employee.

“My career would not have existed at all without the autism,” says Brix.

The developmental condition, which strikes about 1 in 150 U.S. children, is considered a “spectrum disorder” because it affects people in many different ways to varying degrees, from mild social troubles to a severe inability to communicate.

It’s often seen as a heartbreaking diagnosis, but  now some revolutionary companies see autism as something else: a resource.

A quiet movement is growing around the globe to help transform the unique attributes of high-functioning autistic adults into sought-after job skills.

In Denmark, the company Specialisterne (the name means “the specialists”), trains people with autism as specially skilled employees who are sent out as hourly consultants to companies to do data entry, assembly work and other jobs that many workers would find tedious and repetitive. Founded in 2004 by businessman Thorkil Sonne, the father of an autistic son, the company has 50 employees, 75 percent of whom are autistic.

In the United States, the non-profit Chicago company Aspiritech recently launched a pilot program to train high-functioning autistics as testers for software development companies. Their first client is mFluent, an iPhone application company near Chicago.

Aspiritech — whose board includes Brix, now retired from Wrigley, and the actor Ed Asner, whose son Charles is autistic — claims those who are autistic have a talent for spotting imperfections, and thrive on predictable, monotonous work.

Brix says his ability to focus on something to the exclusion of everything else gives him an advantage. And Specialisterne says tests show their employees can be up to eight times more accurate at tasks like manual data entry than workers without autism.

“The stuff we do is boring for [others], like going through a program looking at every detail, testing the same function over and over again in different situations, but it doesn’t disturb those of us with autism,” says Thomas Jacobsen, an autistic employee at Specialisterne. “That’s our strength.”

Still, software testing isn’t simply a repetitive exercise, notes Dan Shiovitz of Marchex, a software company in Seattle that specializes in online search and advertising. While traits of “detail focus, willingness to repeat tasks and technical aptitude are ones we look for in testers, testing has a lot of creative work,” he notes. Testers need to be able to figure out possible solutions to problems and be agile enough to change plans at the last minute or deal with sudden new requirements.

Source : http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34047713/ns/health-mental_health/