This guest post is by Benjamin Bayne, a young man who was diagnosed with autism at 7 and plans to attend Illinois State University. Benjamin 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.
When I was first diagnosed with autism, I was taken to three different kinds of therapists to help me: physical, occupational, and speech therapists. Each of them helped me in different ways that have inarguably helped me throughout my life. After I was taught enough to not need to go to them anymore, I wanted to give back to the people that had helped me so much, and so I became a Boy Scout, in hopes that I could help the community and learn how to do so effectively and often. I however, was unsatisfied with the help I had done. True may it be that I had risen through the ranks and been able to help more and more lives as I grew, it never directly helped the kids like me, who had a harder time learning and understanding social and emotional queues.
So, for my Eagle Project, I did exactly that. When it came time to brainstorm ideas for my project my parents helped me out in coming up with ideas for the project, but I shot most of them down as they did not go to helping the special needs children that I felt I had a responsibility to help. This is, until one day when I saw something while scrolling through the internet, the perfect project: a wall, but not just any old wall, a wall with Legos on it. Instantly my mind sprang into action, imagining the possibilities and wonder that I could try and provide to the kids who needed it. My parents were immediately on board after looking for so long for a project I would accept and being greeted with the answer to their cries. We got one of my Scoutmasters who was an engineer to help with the design and everything seemed to be set for the prototype to be made to test things out, to try and make the great Lego wall, it could move around, had a bag for holding Legos and was all around a wonderful creation that I was sure the children would love. Then Covid hit, and the entire project had to be reworked from the start.
With a new concern about safety, the PTA became unsure about a large wooden movable table with sharp edges. So the project had to be thought about with a different perspective, from the ground up. Nobody knew what to do until I thought, “What if it was small?” and so the project was downsized from one large table, to four small tray tables. The engineer suggested that it should be made of PVC piping for both an easier clean, as cleanliness was an ever-growing concern, and it would be far lighter to use, making it easier to work with. We began work immediately, making concept art to show our ideas to each other, but in the end, the simplest design won out. A standard tray table, constructed of only PVC pipes and a sturdy canvas, with the titular Lego baseplate secured on the top using Velcro. The children loved it. The social worker who taught and helped those children like the social workers of my past had helped me, loved it. So I loved it too.
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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.
