This guest post is by Fernando Iglesias Fernández, a young man with autism who was accepted into the Official University Master’s Degree for Psychopharmacology and Drugs of Abuse. Fernando 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.
To start with, comment that autism is one of the different neurological disorders that make up the generic term “Autism spectrum disorder (ASD)” and that they begin to manifest themselves in the few months of life characterized generally by the presence of difficulties of social interaction and a tendency to repeat certain patterns of behavior. At present, 1 in 100 children (in USA 1 in 56) suffer from the syndrome and it is more frequent in children than in girls, at a ratio of 4 to 1. This increase has alarmed scientists and is believed to be due to changes in the diagnosis.
It should be added that the origin of ASDs is a challenge for the scientific community and one of the main concerns of parents around the world. Many scientists agree that autism does not only respond to a single cause but occurs because of a combination of genetic and environmental factors, although they have not yet discovered the exact components of that combination.
People with autism often stress about people who do not have this condition when performing certain tasks, such as identifying patterns and logical reasoning, as well as those that require a lot of concentration and great attention to detail ideal candidates for positions in sectors such as engineering, high technology or review work as they can detect information that is considered essential.
But they have social and communication problems. They are also prone to certain repetitive behaviors and, most of them, badly accept changes in their daily routines. In addition, many people with ASD learn, pay attention and react to different sensations in an unusual way, which causes rejection in society even reaching physical and psychological abuse. TEA begins in infancy and lasts throughout a person’s life.
In reality, there are currently significant gaps concerning basic aspects of the quality of life of people with ASD and their families. They extend to all areas, from early detection or early care to education or support to independent living in adult life, and to fully participate as full citizens in society.
In my opinion, it is necessary to support people with ASD to provide them with adequate vocational training, as well as give them more opportunities for work placement and thus end up with widespread discrimination. Autism and its acceptance respond to questions of change in social perception and I am sure that this “alleged autistic behavior” is beneficial in a different social environment.
It should not be forgotten that Albert Einstein, Mozart, and Isaac Newton belonged to this group.
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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.
