This guest post is by Tony Miller, a young man on the autism spectrum who was diagnosed with Asperger’s at age 11 and has been accepted into Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Tony is applying for the Spring 2022 Making a Difference Autism Scholarship via the nonprofit KFM Making a Difference started by me, Kerry Magro. I was nonverbal till 2.5 and diagnosed with autism at 4 and you can read more about my organization here. Autistics on Autism: Stories You Need to Hear About What Helped Them While Growing Up and Pursuing Their Dreams, our nonprofit’s new book, will be released on March 29, 2022 on Amazon here for our community to enjoy featuring the stories of 100 autistic adults.
By the age of 3, I had been expelled from 4 daycare facilities and my parents had removed me from another that was unsafe for me. I was labeled a biter! Once I received that esteemed label, it wasn’t long before the administration showed me the door. When I became upset, my first defense was to ignore you. But if you kept pestering me, I would dig my teeth into your limb or shoulder! One school informed my parents that I moved lightning fast and needed constant supervision. I didn’t want to comply with requests to share my toys or finish digging in the dirt or change my focus from the topic that had captured my attention that month. Why should I go inside when there are very interesting affairs happening in this dirt hole? I felt that it was extremely unfair that I was forced to give away my golf club and ball when I greatly enjoyed playing with it. To combat that, I would just pretend like other people didn’t exist. This was a very successful strategy, until it wasn’t. My teachers and playmates didn’t listen to what I couldn’t tell them.
Both of my parents worked full-time jobs and we didn’t have a strong extended family network to support us, so they struggled to find a suitable home for me during the day. During the period that we shuffled between the ‘best’ preschools in the area and my behavior worsened. With my routine fully disrupted, my limited coping ability was even more strained. Eventually, we found a Montessori school that could accommodate me. They understood that I didn’t want to bite anyone. I was unaccustomed to hearing a positive voice from teachers and was unable to work through these big feelings that a 3 or 4-year-old doesn’t understand. Small triumphs like sharing a book transitioned into bigger achievements like sitting quietly and listening while in the reading circle.
I settled into this new world, where I could practice buttoning and clasping and velcroing. Then, I became fascinated with counting squares and abacuses. Later, I loved writing my name on every sheet of paper I could find. Feeling capable enough to pour my own milk at snack time turned into cheerfully picking schoolwork up at the end of the day. Through the empowering activities at school, I had found my voice and no longer needed to ignore or lash out at others. I could tell other people that I was still using the markers instead of biting my friend’s hand when they reached out for them. My daily updates were filled with positivity and growth.
Years later, I was diagnosed with autism and received Behavioral Therapy. This was such a game-changer for me and my ability to navigate the world. My therapist helped me identify emotions in myself and others. She helped me find my own motivation to comply with requests from authority figures and my peers. I had never seen the point of completing uninteresting tasks until I saw that sometimes doing unpleasant things today would lead to better activities tomorrow. Wanting to connect to peers led to having friends and feeling better about myself. I didn’t know what I was missing.
We took the baby steps that I had created and transformed them into a staircase using the tools that my therapist gave me. Using this staircase, I was able to reach out to make friendships, create and implement plans to succeed at school and even obtain and keep a part-time job. Keep striving towards success and try to build your staircase. Enrich your life with the activities you love. I encourage people with autism and their parents to keep trying and celebrate your successes. The small wins will add up to a great victory, even if you have to bare your teeth to get there.
Follow my journey on Facebook, my Facebook Fan Page, Tiktok, Youtube & Instagram,
My name is Kerry Magro, a professional speaker and best-selling author who is also on the autism spectrum that started the nonprofit KFM Making a Difference in 2011 to help students with autism receive scholarship aid to pursue post-secondary education. Help support me so I can continue to help students with autism go to college by making a tax-deductible donation to our nonprofit here.
Autistics on Autism: Stories You Need to Hear About What Helped Them While Growing Up and Pursuing Their Dreams, will be released on March 29, 2022 on Amazon here for our community to enjoy featuring the stories of 100 autistic adults. 100% of the proceeds from this book will go back to our nonprofit to support initiatives like our autism scholarship program. In addition, this autistic adult’s essay you just read will be featured in a future volume of this book as we plan on making this into a series of books on autistic adults.
