Helping Adults with Autism Perform and Excel Corporation

Aspiritech: Aspiritech is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit business that provides website software testing, quality assurance, data analysis and other information technology-related services to organizations and businesses in the competitive marketplace. As these tasks are time-consuming and repetitive, Aspiritech was founded upon the premise that autistic adults are specifically suited for this kind of work. Accordingly, more than 90% of its current 100 employees, are on the autism spectrum. Such workers exhibit a significant aptitude for working alone, maintaining full concentration and paying particular attention to detail. To sustain its growth and ability to offer suitable career employment to as many qualified autistic adults as possible, HAAPE is collaborating with Aspiritech to provide a comprehensive 6-week virtual academy that provides an online training program to introduce software testing to prospective candidates. Each training session is usually oversubscribed with approximately 10 applicants for each available position. Upon completion of the program, about 90% of the graduates find employment with either Aspiritech or outside companies. Aspiritech also hopes to expand its virtual training sessions to include cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and accessibility testing and compliance.

Community Outreach/Education: HAAPE is changing the paradigm that autism is a deficiency -- to a better understanding about the strengths that autistic adults often exhibit in the workplace. Such adults are likely to demonstrate intrinsic unique and special abilities that provide high value to employers and the community at large. They are loyal, extremely productive, pay attention to detail and can successfully work with little or no supervision. They often offer "out-of-the-box business solutions that others would never have thought of. To alleviate the concerns that prospective employers might share, HAAPE is educating the community on the economic and business value of our mission -- to convince organizations to employ adults with ASD. We are currently developing a new website that will provide information supporting our mission and allow prospective businesses offering positions and qualified candidates looking for career employment to learn about opportunities and register with our database. Utilizing our Social Return on Investment (SROI) model and social licensing, we have been able to establish and illustrate huge economic savings and benefits for employing autistic adults. For every autistic adult hired, the societal cost for supporting such adults drops significantly and the Department of Labor's derived "multiplier effect" increases societal savings even more for each autistic adult hired. To further achieve this goal, we have established new HAAPE chapters and affiliates throughout the United States, have attended and exhibited at various meetings and conventions, and have utilized social media, webinars, our website and on-site meetings with key stakeholders to spread our message. HAAPE continues to develop unique strategies for training and employing adults with ASD. We do not operate and execute these ideas, but leave the execution of our programs up to our partners and collaborators.

Computerized Numeric Control (CNC): The "Uniquely Abled Project" (UAP) has created a program that focuses on training men and women with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to become CNC machine operators. CNC operators are currently in great demand over a broad range of industries, especially in manufacturing. Together with the UAP, HAAPE is working with several colleges and other teaching institutions to establish the HAAPE-Uniquely Abled Academy to train qualified ASD adults to operate this equipment. HAAPE has chosen Broward College as our first recipient of a CNC license during FY 2022. For FY 2023, we have added two more licenses to teach CNC at Palm Beach State College and AmSkills, Inc. -- and we are committed to grant several more CNC licenses to approved colleges and universities within the next two years. To date, nearly 100% of the graduates who have taken the CNC training course have received career employment opportunities from qualified, autism-friendly companies.

In addition to the programs described above, HAAPE offers other options that are designed to train and employ autistic adults. These offer other opportunities that are expressly geared to take advantage of the unique strengths exhibited by our candidates. These programs include (1) drone piloting, (2) supply chain and logistics certification, (3) avionics equipment repair certification and (4) workplace development. The first three require significant formal training -- for example -- an FAA Part 107 License for piloting a drone, and course certification for supply chain management and avionics equipment repair. These training courses teach specialized skills that are directly transferable to business applications. Drone piloting has been found to be extremely useful and cost effective for investigating hard-to-reach areas such as rooftops and areas with little or no direct access. Supply chain management has gained popularity because of the significant disruptions caused by Covid that impacted retail and wholesale outlets and the economy throughout the country. Our program for avionics repair was greatly hindered by Covid, but businesses supporting the aviation industry are just now getting back to normal. We hope to have more candidates enter the program in the near future -- where good paying jobs are now back in demand. Workplace development provides a means to help trained autistic adults find appropriate career employment with companies that are properly situated to meet the individual prerequisite requirements for maintaining an autistic-friendly work environment. We cannot understate the importance of our workplace development program. If our graduates cannot be comfortable working, then none of our programs could ever be successful.