This guest post is by Larenz Peri a young man on the autism spectrum who was diagnosed with ASD at age 11 and is attending the University of Central Florida. Larenz 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 biggest obstacle holding back people with autism like me is the general public’s lack of knowledge and understanding. A large portion of educators, law enforcement, cashier workers, employers and most of your general people in the local community do not realize how many people they encounter that are on the spectrum and believe that they encounter weird people.
Educating our general population about autistic related disabilities is something that should occur in every field, retail store, school and local community. I can remember times when I would walk into a store and someone would not hear or understand what I wanted to say or didn’t have the patience to wait for me to formulate the thoughts into words. At times there was no empathy either. Walking around, knowing that people may not understand how your brain works, how you feel, or how intimidating the outside world is can be quite frustrating.
Education starts with learning about the characteristics of an individual with autism and related disabilities. The difficulties we face at times is communication and rationalization. A good example would be when being pulled over by a police officer. Most of the time we are nervous and very jerky in movement during these situations. While not all officers, a officer may at times take our slow response for lack of respect, evading questioning, thinking that we are under the influence of a substance or that we will be violent.
Our local advocates here have taken the initiative in helping law enforcement and some educators learn a little more about ASD. The advocates have created workshops and videos as part of the training in the police academy in our county. They have also instituted this for our educators, and local companies and have a strong presence in one of our major universities in central Florida. The training includes recognition of behaviors, types of personal and social issues that an ASD individual may struggle with;
characteristics of fear, lack of eye contact and social withdrawal.
The other portion of the pieces of training offered is to help with how to interact with an ASD individual. They help with responses to crises, and de-escalation of altercations, and are given the resources to learn more. Our local office went the extra mile to help young teens learn to drive and how to navigate interactions with law enforcement. They also have helped the teens by creating an ASD ID card that is given to the officer at the first point of contact. This way the officer is immediately aware of the driver’s disability and will be better able to navigate the interaction.
We are fortunate in our county for the organization that supports our ASD population. The education initiated and provided by our local advocates has been a tremendous help to other members of our community in learning about ASD. If all other states, organizations, and advocates all around the country would increase awareness, and provide training and education, we would have fewer obstacles for ASD individuals. We would potentially even save lives.
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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.
