Haddon worked with autistic individuals as a young man.
More than 300,000 autistic individuals in the United States are afflicted, and half cannot speak.
"For an autistic individual who is trying to piece together too much information from a face, maybe it's like looking at the sun," he says.
It gives autistic individuals a way to communicate and form online communities.
For each autistic individual, mutations in more than one gene may be implicated.
The rise of the internet provided more opportunities for autistic individuals to connect and organize.
However, they don't know exactly what aspect of cognition is impaired in autistic individuals.
Thus, autistic individuals may have the capacity for more abstract but robust associations.
Given these findings it would appear as if autistic individuals have trouble categorizing.
His specific focus in terms of research and advocacy is for those "full syndrome" autistic individuals.