This guest post is by Beau Kendall, a young man on the autism spectrum who was diagnosed with ASD at age 8 and is attending Indiana Tech University. Beau 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.
My earliest memories are happy and seem “normal.” I have devoted parents and a sister. My dad is a millwright and my mom is a teacher. My grandparents were my only daycare providers. Everything seemed quite “normal” to me. I am a seemingly happy four-year-old. Little do I know, my parents have concerns about my development and have spoken to my pediatrician about ASD.
Preschool is where I begin to find my first struggles. I am not able to communicate with others socially and do not understand the general social “rules.” There is a sticker behavior management system and I come home with a RED sticker each day because I am not able to follow or understand the set “rules”. I am able to learn all of the academic standards well above my peers so my teacher thinks I am just an incorrigible child.
Kindergarten and the subsequent grades did not fare much better for me. In first grade, I am so overstimulated with trying to fit in and understand how to navigate it all that I end up having more challenges. Once I got to third grade, I was tested and diagnosed with ASD. This diagnosis was not shared with me until the tenth grade because I am not able to understand or use the diagnosis to help move forward in school.
Taking the state-mandated test each year in school was just one of the daunting things I was asked to do. The essay question on the standardized state test in fourth grade asked me to pretend I was a mailman and I was delivering mail to my community.
It wanted me to write about what it was like to deliver mail. Having ASD for me does not allow me to pretend I am a mailman or anything else for that matter, and I am not able to comprehend what on Earth they want me to do. I left the entire essay blank. This says so much to me as a fourth-grade student. I left it blank! I had nothing to give! My ability to answer this question on a very important test was zero! I was greatly affected.
I walked away from this standardized test, thinking I was a failure. This is just part of what the educational system does to assess students inadequately. I am so incredibly bright, but I cannot show it on standardized tests. Because I cannot pretend to be a mailman, I failed that test. Fortunately, my teachers are quite aware of my abilities and therefore place me in advanced classes. I think I am not able to do the work because I am not able to show all of my abilities on paper.
My teachers and my parents were able to help me work through this difficult issue and persevere through it to pass all my advanced placement classes with As. The only accommodation they have made for me is to explain the work in detail so I can understand. They also give me extended time to write. They work with me to help me understand all the figurative language and how to interpret what the world around me means. I have to work every minute of my evenings, from the time I come home until the time I go to bed. I email my teachers nonstop and they email me back so I am able to complete my assignments each night. My autism makes me so obsessive that I must get work done as soon as it is assigned. I am not able to make mistakes without going over the top about it. Once directions are given on an assignment, I ask my teachers to repeat them over and over to make sure I know every single thing I need to do. I use every single bit of a large pink eraser in record time! It is gone in a matter of a week. No mistakes! It’s overwhelming. It is who I am.
Overcoming all the academic challenges was something I was able to do with lots of perseverance. Overcoming the social and emotional challenges was another thing. My peers did not understand. They had no problem pretending to be a mailman. They did not include me ever. I was never invited to a party or included when my classmates were doing things together. I tried to be friends with them, they just didn’t want me around. This made it difficult for me throughout high school. I had one or two friends that were friends with me because they wanted to study with me so they could get good grades. By my senior year, I had all the credits I needed to graduate with an honors diploma and was able to go to my local vocational school to learn computer science. This is where I was able to find a group of friends that included me and I flourished. I was able to learn the trade and get certified in several areas of computer science and cyber security. This opportunity was an integral part of my educational career.
By the end of my senior year, I was able to graduate with 39 college credits, an honors diploma, and got a job to help pay for my college expenses. I was accepted into a great college to major in cyber security and minor in computer science. After my first semester of college, I still have all As. I have no doubt that I will achieve my goals and graduate within three years with a bachelor’s degree in cyber security and a minor in computer science. I can even write an eight-page paper about pretending to be a mailman and what his day is like delivering mail!
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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, 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 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.
