NEURODIVERSITY-I spy with my little eye . . . someone on the spectrum - Telegraph

Elsewhere, those with the variety of conditions that are grouped under this banner (dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, ADHD, Asperger’s and autism) often struggle to land jobs because of negative stereotypes. Full-time employment rates among members of the National Autism Society, for example, stand at only 15 per cent. Yet when it comes to being recruited as spies, those “problems” become pluses.

GCHQ even has its own Neurodiverse Support Group. Its chairman (who naturally wants to be identified only as “Matt”) explains the thinking: “What people don’t realise is that people with neurodiversity usually have a 'spiky skills’ profile, which means that certain skills areas will be below par and others may well be above.”

Matt’s reading, spelling and handwriting may be below average, he confesses, “but my 3D special-perception awareness and creativity are in the top 1 per cent of my peer group”. And that makes him particularly well-suited to the hi-tech world of modern espionage.

GCHQ is not the only employer to spot this opportunity. Three quarters of the workforce of the Danish software company Specialisterne is made up of those on the autism spectrum. It argues that a diagnosis of autism can often point to enhanced perceptual functions and a greater-than-average ability to pay attention to tiny, apparently insignificant details. And that is precisely what is in short supply in the industry.

But does that neat fit between “neurodiversity” and spying stretch much beyond a genius with software, the sort of work that is more Q’s department than 007’s globetrotting high jinks? What about solving mysteries and tracking down criminals? Surely that same attention to detail could pay dividends in a secret agent or high-profile detective.

The many websites aiming to crush the myth that dyslexia is any obstacle at all to being a world-beater are full of the names of those who have thrived with it – inventors (Alexander Graham Bell), entrepreneurs (Richard Branson), virtuoso musicians (Nigel Kennedy), writers (F Scott Fitzgerald) and Renaissance men (Leonardo da Vinci). But I can find none with a special category for spies and detectives.

A fictional list, though, is easy to compile. Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes has always been a notoriously hard character to unlock, but both Robert Downey Jr (on the big screen) and Benedict Cumberbatch (on the small) have had great success in playing him as someone on the autism spectrum.

Val McDermid’s police psychologist, Dr Tony Hill, in the Wire in the Blood series of novels and TV films, is another in whom the flipside of poor social skills and empathy is his exceptional insight into the damaged minds of the criminals he confronts.

And the star of Nordic noir’s The Bridge, Detective Saga Noren, may be so different as to be utterly blind to social niceties (when encouraged by her boss to engage in office banter with colleagues, she silences everyone during a coffee break by announcing that her period has just begun) yet her analytical powers are second to none.

So does it translate into real life? There’s not a lot of evidence when it comes to flesh-and-blood police officers. There certainly aren’t any high-flyers in the senior ranks who have a publicly acknowledged a neurodiverse condition. But then, they may quite reasonably regard it as a private matter.

There is one exceptional story, though, that we are going to be hearing a lot more about in the coming weeks, which spectacularly bears out the wisdom of GCHQ’s initiative in widening its net in spy recruitment beyond the usual Oxbridge suspects. Alan Turing, the mathematician and wartime code-breaker at Bletchley Park, is to be played by Benedict Cumberbatch in a soon-to-be-released film. The Imitation Game celebrates his achievements – all of which he managed while coping with dyslexia.

Not in spite of it, as might have been said at the time, but it is now being argued that his success was because of it. That’s a lesson that has only taken us 60 years to learn.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11113540/I-spy-with-my-little-eye...-someone-on-the-spectrum.html