For #WorldAutismDay, don’t forget autistic young adults trying to enter the workforce.

Today is #WorldAutismDay. And, while awareness is always good, World Autism Day shares some of the same problems as #RacefortheCure. The #KomenFoundation focuses exclusively on women whose cancer can be cured. It leaves out the thousands of women with #metastatic breast cancer who are focused on living with cancer rather than finding a cure. There are a whole lot of women who hate October for that reason, and there is a growing group of people who feel the same way about autism “awareness.” Most campaigns focus on children; I’ve seen very little about the autistic young adults trying to enter the workforce.

Like metastatic breast cancer, autism can’t be cured. But that’s OK. While my son is on the very mild end of the spectrum, he doesn’t want to be “fixed.” When we talked about it, he said he wouldn’t want to be cured…that autism is so much a part of who he is that a cure would mean excising a part of himself. He doesn’t need pity, and he doesn’t need awareness devoid of action.

What he needs is employers who not only understand #autism but who are willing to change their perception of the ideal employee, both in hiring and in daily work. My son doesn’t understand, for instance, that, when someone says, “Hey, do you want to help me with this?”, that the person isn’t really…