I had a short chat with an acquaintance last night about Autistic Spectrum Disorder. It was unprompted on my part: he was unaware as he started that I have Aspergers Syndrome. The conversation began when we got talking about what I do for a living and he brought up hacking and the case of Gary McKinnon. It turned out that he was well-informed about ASD to the extent that he knew it was a spectrum disorder and that while some people with ASD can be highly successful in their fields the autistic savant is not remotely as common as popularly imagined.

The conversation reassured me that there are NT people out there who know that ASD is much more than Rain Man or other stereotypes. It gave me some hope that the message is getting across and the condition is becoming more widely known. I remind myself that one swallow does not make a summer, but I still have a more positive feeling as a result of the conversation.