This guest post is by Alexander Passoni-Torres, a young man with Asperger’s majoring in mathematics. Alexander 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 half Hispanic, half Italian, autistic young adult. I did not speak until about the age of two and a half, and when I did, it was mostly jargon. I loved dinosaurs and often made dinosaur sounds. When my mother first put me into kindergarten, the teacher thought I might not be ready to be in school. I was having trouble learning to read, so, at age six, I was categorized as developmentally delayed in school and pulled out of regular class to be seen by the special ed teacher. Later that year, it was determined that I had autism. I had an IQ test that showed a low IQ for my age, and I continued to receive special services both in and out of school. My mom went to every doctor and tried a variety of therapies to help me. She stayed home so that she could take me to all these therapies. In middle school, I struggled until one teacher noticed that I was clever at certain subjects and suggested to my mom that I be in advanced math and geography. Once it was determined that I learned differently than others, I started doing better in school with accommodations. I was accepted into the gifted program and joined the National Honors Society. I took AP classes and passed many of them, so I started college with 21 college credits. I graduated as a valedictorian and got awarded the Distinguished Graduate award. I applied to many colleges and got into all of them. However, since I still need support services, I chose a college near where I live, the University of Tulsa. It is a small private college with a unique program for autistic people called the Pathfinder Program. It helps me with social skills and daily life activities to live independently on campus.
Before going to the University of Tulsa, I was already aware that fewer autistic people go to college and that they had a higher dropout rate than that of your average first-year college student, but what I did discover through attending a speech by Oklahoma Autism Network on campus was that about eighty-five percent of autistic students who obtain their bachelor’s degree remain unemployable. That is a dreary statistic for a college student to hear. It shows that society is not as accessible as we think we are, especially the jobs industry. We seem to be able to put up a wheelchair ramp or an accessible parking space reasonably quickly. Still, when it comes to accommodations for autistic behaviors so that we can have access to careers that we qualified for, businesses are failing these people and depriving themselves of an employee with neurodiverse ideas that can improve the company. College is an excellent opportunity to help normalize autistic traits because one day, these people might be able to hire people. The more people we can get to accept these behaviors and make those accommodations that make the jobs accessible to autistic people. Colleges need special programs to teach and offer support to people with autism attending their school to help prepare them for successful interviews. Colleges should also reach out to businesses about how they can accommodate autistic employees so that they may benefit from having a neurodiverse employee. A career can be a meaningful part of an autistic person’s life, lifting them from social isolation. I am proving those statistics wrong by continuing to stay in college. I am working to improve my social and life skills so that maybe one day, I can speak at an event and report much better odds and that the business world is becoming more accessible to people like me.
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.
