This guest post is by Tyler Trujillo, a young man on the autism spectrum who was diagnosed with autism at 2 1/2 years of age and has been accepted to the University of Texas Arlington. Tyler is applying for the Spring 2023 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, was released on March 29, 2022, on Amazon here for our community to enjoy featuring the stories of 100 autistic adults.
I am Tyler Trujillo. An autistic scholar, who likes video games, math and helping other people. I am currently a student at the University of Texas at Arlington studying computer science. Undoubtedly, as a man with autism there has been a lot of obstacles. I will be taking you through the journey of Tyler Trujillo. It all started August 24,2003 I was born at the Kaiser hospital in Sacramento, California. Through my first four years I communicated nonverbally. When I started talking I would refer to ketchup as “chep it” and Ribs as “rapes”. The way I would communicate as a baby was pointing at things and crying. At 2 1/2 I started in home therapy and started communicating with pictures. My parents knew that I was a smart baby being able to get through child proof doors, gates and locks to the refrigerator. It wasn’t until I was three and a half years old when I said my first words “mom”.
At my first school in California, I would have special note cards used to transmit information to peers and instructors. After one year at my first school, me and my family moved to Texas. I continued my special Ed classes where I learned how to start basic conversations and appropriate social skills. I remember the first conversation I had in the special Ed class was talking about myself and how I liked video games. At this point, I begin to feel more confident in my abilities.
At home I was able to interact a lot better with family, I showed my sister how to play Monkey Ball and Mario Party 6. Fast forward to first grade I was in mainstream classes but had special education help if needed, I remember doing math assignments of adding and subtracting that would be a piece of cake, on the flip side, when it came to English language arts I struggled greatly. Specifically, comprehending reading texts and figurative language. I recall having a special education teacher come in to assist me with English throughout my elementary school years. The special Ed teachers help me better understand the read texts and be able to interpret figurative language.
In 5th grade, I encountered one the biggest obstacles. What happened was I had a teacher that would yell at me and make me feel uncomfortable. In this environment I was not able to function and feel I was in a safe learning environment. I look back on the time, I came up crying because of the fact I was not happy and needed to be in environment where I can learn. My Mom got involved in this and scheduled a meeting with my school. One of the things I will never forget is when my Mom said “ it is the school’s responsibility to place my child in an environment where he can function”. I was happy to have a mother that would stand up for me. Then my 5th grade teacher said “he is loud and disrupting the class”. However in reality, I was the quietest kid in the world when it came to the classroom. One of the special education teachers was at the meeting. As everyone was walking out my Mom said to her “don’t listen to what anyone said about Tyler, not even me. Let him show you who he is.” After, this meeting, I got out of that class and started to feel a lot happier in my other classes. Consequently, my grades started to improve to a 3.5 GPA. I was more interactive with others and making substantial progress. I had no problems for the rest of 5th grade, the thing that I enjoyed the most brighten up everyone’s day.
At the end of the year my school did a field trip. My Mom was one of the chaperones as well as the same special Ed teacher at the meeting. The special Ed teacher pull my Mom to the side said “ I’m so glad you fought for him and I seen the little boy you said he was”. This moment meant so much because it made me feel worthy enough to lift Thor’s hammer. Later on, in middle school I was one the top students in every class except English. In English, I would go to tutorings to help with English. Despite my difficulties in that class, I still maintained a B grade. One day in my 8th grade math class, there was a problem that came up x squared, what is the domain. Immediately I said all real numbers. Everyone in the class was shocked, how I was able to process information so quickly. When people started to compliment me, I didn’t know what to say. I was not the best at conversing, so I communicated through actions.
Coming into High school, it was the time when figurative language got addressed. My special ed teacher asked my other teachers to start using sarcasm to me a lot in the hopes of understanding it better. It helped me a lot considering that I used to take sarcasm literally. In high school, I grew close to a lot of teachers. I was super interactive and wanted to show my mathematical talents. Almost every teacher I had suggested to me to get a job in the engineering field. I had a lot of support doing high school, I would never let my autism get in my way. I was comfortable in classes with all the other kids. Eventually my graduation June 13, 2021 I graduated with an unweighted GPA of 3.8 and rank 101 out of 692 of my graduating class.
After high school, I applied for the University of Texas at Arlington and got accepted in a heartbeat. Personally, my goal after graduation is to help other people like myself on the autism spectrum achieve their goals by creating scholarships for special needs people to get their education. Think of disability as a different ability rather than a disability.
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. I 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 was 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.
