This guest post is by Carlos Andrade, a young man on the autism spectrum who was diagnosed with ASD and will be attending Florida International University. Carlos 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.
The life of an autistic person can be seen as either a blessing or a curse. I was diagnosed with autism at the age of 2 which made certain things very challenging for me. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be defined as a “Neurological disability caused by differences in the brain”. That meant that my brain was wired differently than other people’s. I couldn’t make eye contact, I couldn’t handle very loud places and I couldn’t even speak to people. But my mom would not give up, she had me go to many therapists such as Ot, Pt, Speech, chiropractors, and hypnotherapists. Since then I have come a long way from the little boy I was so many years ago. But that doesn’t stop there, I have also accomplished many things since then and I can’t wait to see where I go from here.
All of this started when I was in the 4th grade. I have been feeling down throughout the school year and I didn’t feel I had my teachers connect with me, so my mom introduced me to Lego Jewelry. At first, I didn’t expect anything from it, but when we uploaded it to Facebook I was receiving tons of orders. Whenever I am surrounded by legos I can’t help but create extravagant things with them. I have been asked to be in many Autism events because of my talents and I even got to give speeches at a few of them. I even got invited to the Kid Art Basel in Miami where I had a booth where I would sell my lego Jewelry there. I got to meet many other artists there showing their unique talents in their creations and inspired me to keep moving forward with my creativity.
Legos aren’t the only thing I’m good at, In fact, I am quite superb when it comes to creative writing. When my English teacher for 10th grade gave me a creative writing assignment about an umbrella, it was like some kind of spark in my mind to write the best short story I could make about that umbrella. From that moment on I vowed that I would continue to write more short stories as imaginative as my first one. I wrote many stories and I even created a few poems that had a rhyme on each line. But I felt as if I was not being challenged enough so I decided to take on a new quest: writing a book. At first, I started with a short story about a boy and an Ogre but It was more of a singular story with not many characters in it. So I created more stories about monsters, fairies, knights, books, and many other things. Pretty soon I had all the stories I needed to make my book. I hope to publish it this year so I can share it with children around the world and make them feel happy.
With all of these skills and artistic abilities, I wish to help many children in hospitals and give them hope. The way I plan to do that is by becoming a Recreational Therapist. I Want to help children with disabilities just like myself through the power of the creative process. I feel as if children should be able to express themselves in their own way and I’d like to step in and see how exactly they can express themselves. With that said, I don’t just plan to do just the artistic process because I plan to do so much more with them. Whether that be a physical, social, or spiritual process, I plan to go all the way to help these children. I was given a great blessing by therapists alike to help me shine in life. I would like to give other children like me the same chance and experience I had while growing up.
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.
