Page 143: " Izzy was full of people who skewed toward the Asperger's end of the social spectrum and there was no better way to get them to start talking than to ask them a technical question." 

The book was published in 2015. Asperger's was merged into the ASD diagnosis in 2013. As an autistic person myself, I can't excuse the slur. There is little reason as to why the author didn't know this as it was a source of controversy.