The Speed of Dark

Our son’s been increasingly interested in getting more education, for the very practical reason of earning more money…having the part-time job has taught him that he’s unlikely to ever make enough to live on from it, even if it were full-time.

So we took him to the nearest city’s community college to find out what was available.  Very sensibly, they insist on all incoming students (not just ones who have special ed and resource courses in their high school transcript) taking their assessment test.    I had been encouraging him to read and write something every day, and he had been, but what with my own work I hadn’t been teaching him.   We had hopes he would do well, at least on the math part of the test.

He didn’t.

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One of the things people sometimes complain of with persons on the spectrum is their “rigidity” and their strict interpretation of,  and adherence to, rules.   Rules they’ve internalized, that is.  But the flip side of “rigidity” is “reliability”–a trait prized by employers.    I was strongly reminded of that today, when our son left me an email (at 7:30 am, that I didn’t see until much later) that he was going out with the man who takes him to interview for other jobs–and I knew he needed to be back in the afternoon to work a shift at his current job.

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