The Invisible Workforce

Computerworld - Gavin Simpson first tasted the bitterness of rejection years ago on the playground, looking for pickup basketball games. "He waited and he waited and he waited," recalls his father, Wendel. "Sometimes the kids just looked right past him and asked someone to go out and find another player. My God, that hurt!"

Gavin, now 31, is still being rejected. And it still hurts. He's a bright, accomplished computer graphics designer. And he's earning straight A's toward his second college degree. But he's been turned down by 12 employers so far. The reason, says his father: his autism.

The physically disabled have made much progress in the workplace since the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990. Experts say that discrimination has decreased and that employers generally are willing to provide the special accommodations needed by employees with physical impairments.

But significantly less progress has been made by those with mental, or intellectual, disabilities. That includes some 6 million adult Americans who are mentally retarded or have psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia or neurological disorders such as autism.

People with such disabilities are often overlooked by employers. Indeed, 60%, or 3.6 million, aren't working, according to InfoUse, a firm in Berkeley, Calif., that specializes in information about people with disabilities.

Fear and ignorance of people with disabilities exists, and such individuals are often stigmatized. Even if job applicants elect not to disclose their disabilities, they may exhibit odd mannerisms that put off employers. For example, people with autism, a neurological disorder usually present at birth, often have poor social and communication skills and shun personal contact.

"Interviewers look positively at my resume because I'm very well-qualified," says Gavin Simpson, who has won several prizes in computer graphics and wants to work in computer animation. "But I don't know what they think about the drawbacks there might be - that I'm somehow a little bit 'different.' They don't give anybody brownie points for being autistic."

Simpson says he's undergone communication and behavior therapy to improve his interpersonal skills, and he always discloses his autism to prospective information technology employers. "They seem to be OK with it, but ultimately, I get a rejection letter," he says.

Many government and private organizations for the mentally disabled focus on treatment but not on job training and placement. And those programs that are employment-oriented are often geared toward finding minimum-wage and subminimum-wage jobs in what advocates for the mentally disabled call the three F's -- food, filing and filth.

But advocates say people with