This guest post is by Connor Conlon, a young man on the autism spectrum who was diagnosed with ASD at age 4 and has been accepted into University of Colorado, Boulder. Connor 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, will be released on March 29, 2022 on Amazon here for our community to enjoy featuring the stories of 100 autistic adults.
Back then, my parents were unsure about my autistic behaviors. They ignored the doctors and other people too. But one person told my mom the hard to swallow truth, my Aunt Vonny. Aunt Vonny is my mom’s best friend from high school and she told my mother that there was something wrong with me and that my mom was focusing mostly on me and not my little brother. My mom took her intimate friend’s words, my dad was not so sure. He was angry and didn’t believe what was the honest truth, he shielded it away like closing the curtains.
So after that, my parents took me to get the ADOS test and the diagnosis was confirmed. My IQ was above average, my verbal communication was below average, though. I would do my own thing or if someone wanted to play with me, then I would want it to be played my way or I’d take away the toy that they had without even looking at or even asking them. When I tried to communicate, I didn’t make eye contact with my therapist or other people when I would ask them for something, I couldn’t even make out full sentences so some people couldn’t fully understand what I was saying or asking for, but my parents would know. I would also have the tendency to be sensory seeking. I couldn’t even do simple things like put on socks due to lack of coordination,I started going to speech and occupational therapy. After therapy, my verbal and communication skills improved greatly, my sensory seeking, not so much. I would be asking for different things a lot clearer and would even invite other people to play with me while making eye contact. Over the years, I would find even more ways to help calm down my sensory seeking and my autistic behavior like music and art. I would still have a tough time paying attention though, come middle school. I was in a special education class to learn how to pay more attention and interact with the class and students. Upon entering 8th grade, I was phased out of SPED.
From time to time I try to blend into society because even though people believe I am normal I am not normal. On certain occasions I show off my true colors and if people ever wondered what I even did, I have to explain to them about my disability, then they understand.
In conclusion, the biggest thing that helped me improve was early childhood intervention. If my mom were to ignore it for longer, where would I be today? But now, I am this kid who communicates just like a regular person but I still have some struggles starting up a conversation. In the future, I would like to help other little kids who have a hard time calming down or communicating. I want to use my passion for art to help them calm down and so that they can communicate visually to other people or their parents. My goal is to go to college and study early childhood education focusing on special education and using art as therapy for young children. I give a lot of credit to my therapists as a young child as well as the therapists in elementary and middle school who helped me along the way. It is very important for parents to listen and take advantage of getting your child help as soon as possible. I believe early childhood therapy is key to helping children on the spectrum navigate life in the future successfully. Because of the successful therapy, my biggest compliment is when I tell people I have autism, they respond “I would have never guessed you had autism”, which makes me smile.
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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, will be 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.
