My older brother is autistic but when it was first diagonised that there was something wrong with, autism wasn't even mentioned (he is in his forties now). Nobody could tell my parents what the problem was so they just continued treating him, as much as they could, like a normal child. He attended a special school from the age of 6 and left at 16. Despite his problems, he has never been out of work and even though he still lives at home, he is very capable of looking after himself. He has a girlfriend, he has friends with whom he can go drinking and on holidays. We are all proud of him and have never treated him differently from anybody else. He has remarkable memory recall and is extemely talented at both woodwork and metalwork.
Many people would have written off my brother and in fact, he has been called horrible names in the past but he has maximised the opportunities that have come his way. He is a hardworking, taxpaying credit to society, unlike many fully functional layabouts who expect society to carry them all the time and would be the first to attach some denigrating label to my brother.
I guess I just want to say that having autism is not the end of the world.