When I read about in reputable , I relate to almost everything that is described (keeping in mind that no two autistic people are alike). However, I always read the sections on with bewilderment. I don't identify either with the obsessive need to make eye contact, which UK and US books often mention as behavior, or with the difficulties in making it.
Any conversation
I'm doing experiments with short attention-span students and code. Starting with python, and, oddly, now working in BASIC. As a C programmer of 40+ years, I find this aesthetically and pedagogically displeasing, but I am delighted to see them getting fully absorbed in writing
130 PRINT "You have been eaten by a bear!" : GOTO 900. Yes there is spaghetti, but it's their spaghetti and they seem to take delight in debugging it. Python will come later. 
