This guest post is by Geno DeRosa a young man on the autism spectrum who was diagnosed with ASD at age 3 and will be attending Brookdale Community College. Geno 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.
Hello, let me introduce myself, my name is Geno DeRosa and one thing that is so meaningful to who I am is that I am autistic. At age 2, I could read anything that was in front of me, but I could not communicate with spoken speech until after the age of four. Of course, over time these issues were resolved, however a lot of issues with me still persist to this very day. These issues that I still have include me having trouble with loud noises, having trouble in large groups, and meltdowns, but that is more rare today. I have been able to fix these issues by finding my own sort of world with video games and technology as a whole.
Before that, however, there is one thing I want to bring up. During my many school years. Extracurricular activities were a big deal, and still kind of are. Due to sensory issues with me being autistic. I did not do any extracurricular activities in school. I did take private boxing classes however for most of my high school career. It helped out with stress, anxiety, and focussing as I had to remember all the different punches and combinations of said punches, not just exercises.
After I stopped doing that, I realized that I had to get a job related to video game development, or just video games in general. As I have been interested in that sort of field for many, many years, even when I was a little kid, I have basically had an addiction to the sort.
After contacting the New Jersey Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services, I got into an internship at OasisVRX. After working there for some time, I was told that since I was doing so well, I was hired into the company. OasisVRX is a company based in Bell Works, Holmdel and is basically a virtual reality arcade. OasisVRX has shown me how a business is run and how to deal with large crowds for parties and in different situations. This is a good challenge for me to overcome since I have had that issue for a long time now, but now at my workplace, it is no longer an issue at all.
In conclusion, my life has been a rollercoaster with me being autistic, but as I grew older and went into high school, I was able to overcome my issues and become a better person from it as a result of all that I have done throughout my life. From being able to read at 2 and talk at 4, to being able to overcome one of the most important issues in my life, I have been on quite a journey throughout my years of school and other activities have helped to form me into the student and person I am today. Many people helped me along the way: teachers, therapists but most of all my parents who never gave up on me and pushed me to try new things.
This is 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 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.
