He's not even a teenager, and can:
* Play the trombone better than peers two years older than he is, all because he inherited a trombone from his late grandfather, and wanted to honor his memory
* Compose music in GarageBand on his iPhone or Mac, and arrange covers of songs from memory, as well as play them on the trombone or piano/keyboard
* Write properly-formatted screenplays, direct and produce (with iMovie) and create VFX (with Apple Motion) for his own creations
* Write automation scripts for various Mac tasks with JavaScript
He has an amazing ability to understand advanced math and science concepts, and recently started positing theories about dark matter (!) during our nightly reading and chatting time. And he's proven that he'll effectively learn (and put into practice) anything he wants to, given the resources to do so. He's expressed more and more interest in computer programming, and I've indulged that interest by teaching him JavaScript (his first request) and now Swift.
And one day, he's going to frighten someone with his skills, and he won't understand why; for all his genius and talent, he's still on the autism spectrum, and one common disadvantage for those on the spectrum is an inability to put themselves in someone else's shoes. He cannot understand why others don't think exactly the way he does, or understand the intentions behind his actions. It is completely alien to him that subterfuge is employed by others, that words and deeds should be taken by anything but their literal or face value. He can't begin to comprehend why his stated intentions behind his words or deeds would not be completely and unconditionally believed by everyone else. It simply does not compute.
He gets services in school to help with his pragmatic communication, and I do everything I can to guide him as well. Once he's out of school, I can only hope we've made enough of a difference for him to live productively and happily in a world that vilifies people with above-average intelligence but below-average pragmatic or social communication skills.