This guest post is by Brooke Mullen, a young woman who is diagnosed with autism and plans to attend Lesley University. Mullen is applying for the Spring 2024 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.
At a young age, I knew I was different from everybody else. When I was very young, I had an early intervention. Once I became the right age to start school, I was put on an IEP. All throughout elementary school, I did summer school. I made it to 5th grade without knowing my consonant sounds.
When my mother found that out, she was recommended to a tutor. She decided to check it out and then realized it’s going to be the right fit for me. The next thing she decided to do was sign me up for it and it was the best thing she did for me. Towards the end of 5th grade all the way up to 8th grade, I did two grade levels a year.
I even went to my tutor’s office over the summer for two hours Monday – Thursday. Also, at the same time, I went to a summer camp. I enjoyed going to this camp for seven years. All throughout middle school I did theater.
When I was in 8th grade, my mother started looking at high schools that would teach me the way I needed to be taught. I looked at three different schools and in the end; I chose Learning Prep School. Learning Prep School is located in West Newton, Massachusetts and at the time I was living in Kingston, New Hampshire. It took two hours each way from home to school. Going to Learning Prep school was a life changer.
I had to do my sophomore year on Zoom because of COVID and that was a challenge in itself, but it was even more of a challenge because I have a learning disability. The year after COVID my high school made it so everyone could come back in person, which was really nice of them to do for us. When it came to my senior year, they split us up into two separate weeks. So one week was doing schoolwork, and the other was at an internship. During our internship week, we would work three days and then we would go out on a school outing to many different places. For example, the internships that were offered were working in a college cafeteria kitchen, Newton Wellesley Hospital, a grocery store, and a library.
My high school had some after-school clubs. Some of them that were offered are theater, Anima, and crafting. During high school, we had one class period where it was called enrichment. We did many things, for example, baking, theater, yearbook, and creative writing. Once I graduated high school, I started the next school year at the Northshore Education Consortium soar program, which is located at Salem State University.
My time at the Soar Program was spent working at a job and doing a little bit of school work, which was math. I also got to do some cooking/baking and some independent living skills. I could either work two, three, or all four days. The days that were chosen for me to work were Monday and Wednesday. Some of the jobs I worked at were the CVS across from Salem State University, CVS in downtown Peabody, the Soar Program’s cafe and art room. I also worked at a catering place in Ipswich. Most of the things I got to cook/bake were smores dip, pigs in a blanket, and cookies.
I worked for three hours every Monday and Wednesday. While at the Soar Program, I made three friends and one best friend. Having friends in the program made my experience a lot better. Some of the Friday trips we did were going into downtown Salem, the witch museum, apple picking, the Topsfield fair, and the aquarium. One of the staff at the Soar Program helped me get my charlie card, which I now have. This meant that I could save a little bit of money, and it is also convenient for if I’m in a rush.
Now that I am out of school I do many different things. Every Tuesday I go horseback riding at 5:00 pm. On the Wednesday of every week, I go bowling at 4:00 pm through the Northeast Arc. The social group I have at 4:20 pm happens on Thursdays. On Fridays I have speech and occupational therapy (OT). I have speech at 11:30 am and OT at 1:00 pm. On Sundays I go swimming through the Special Olympics. Last September I did equestrian in the Special Olympics and I got two first-place medals in the categories they had.
In conclusion, this is what my life was like having ASD and not knowing it. When I got my diagnosis it felt like it explained some things I do. It was like the missing puzzle piece to my puzzle.
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.
