A Quote by John Donvan

Social interactions can be enormously challenging for people on the spectrum. That's part of the reason that unemployment among autistic adults hovers near 80 percent.

John Donvan

Quote Topics

Adults Among Autistic Challenging Interactions Near Part People Percent Reason Social Social Interaction Spectrum Unemployment

Quote Author

John Donvan
Correspondent
Born: 1955

Economists often talk about the 80/20 Principle, which is the idea that in any situation roughly 80 percent of the “work” will be done by 20 percent of the participants. In most societies, 20 percent of criminals commit 80 percent of crimes. Twenty percent of motorists cause 80 percent of all accidents. Twenty percent of beer drinkers drink 80 percent of all beer. When it comes to epidemics, though, this disproportionality becomes even more extreme: a tiny percentage of people do the majority of the work.

Malcolm Gladwell

I think that autistic brains tend to be specialized brains. Autistic people tend to be less social. It takes a ton of processor space in the brain to have all the social circuits. I mean after all, the first stone spear was not designed by the totally social people.

Temple Grandin

Whereas children can learn from their interactions with their parents how to get along in one sort of social hierarchy--that of the family--it is from their interactions with peers that they can best learn how to survive among equals in a wide range of social situations.

Zick Rubin

The black unemployment rate has to be twice that of the white rate in the US. If the national unemployment rate were 6.8 percent, everyone would be freaking out. We ought to not take too much solace in the 6.8 percent, but ask ourselves what can we do to bring that down to white rates, which are below 4 percent now. Some of that has to do with education, but that's just part of the story. You find that those unemployment differentials persist across every education level. I think it means pushing back on discrimination and helping people who can't find work get into the job market.

Jared Bernstein

The unemployment rate among the young in the United States is still very disconcerting, although we all know it's nowhere near as bad as it is in some of the European countries, where in some places it approaches 50 percent.

Anna Quindlen

It's worse than slave trade because what is being traded is the very knowledge that makes survival possible for 80 percent of the people of this world. These 80 percent live on the biodiversity and the knowledge they have evolved as part of a rich collective heritage involving the use of seeds for growing crops and medicinal plants for healing.

Vandana Shiva

I think that autistic brains tend to be specialized brains. Autistic people tend to be less social. It takes a ton of processor space in the brain to have all the social circuits.

Temple Grandin

The unemployment rate has effectively not gone down from where it was at the peak of the recession. The only reason it's gone technically from 10 percent to 8 percent is so many people are discouraged and have quit work.

Jim Talent

Autism's a very big spectrum. At one end of the spectrum, Einstein would probably be labeled autistic, Steve Jobs, half of Silicon Valley, you know, Van Gogh. And at the other end of the spectrum, you got much more severe handicaps where they never learn to speak.

Temple Grandin

Animals are like autistic savants. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that animals might actually be autistic savants. Animals have special talents normal people don't, the same way autistic people have special talents normal people don't; and at least some animals have special forms of genius normal people don't, the same way some autistic savants have special forms of genius. I think most of the time animal genius probably happens for the same reason autistic genius does: a difference in the brain autistic people share with animals.

Temple Grandin

We're very interested in helping individuals on the autism spectrum cope and learn about social interactions and regulating emotions.

Rana el Kaliouby

But if the choice is a cool president and 8 or 10 percent unemployment in a declining economy and a country that seems to be going in the wrong direction and structural unemployment for young people at 50 percent, I'd rather have a dorky president who fixed those problems.

Jonah Goldberg

Looking ahead, future generations may learn their social skills from robots in the first place. The cute yellow Keepon robot from Carnegie Mellon University has shown the ability to facilitate social interactions with autistic children. Morphy at the University of Washington happily teaches gestures to children by demonstration.

Daniel H. Wilson

80 percent of the Dutch jihadists who go to fight in Syria are Moroccans. 80 percent. They are 22 times over represented when it comes to street crime, and 60 percent of the Moroccan youth under the age of 23 has been arrested at least once.