This guest post is by Eden Sariff, a young woman who is diagnosed with autism and will attend Old Dominion University. Eden is applying for the Spring 2025 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.
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When my mother told me not to give up, it changed my life. She first told me this in 2019. She told me that because she believed when I don’t give up, it can lead to success. I have found this to be true, and, as a result, it has made me more confident and happier. I learned to take my mom’s advice and also to apply it to other areas in life besides just for school.
Firstly, the occasion for my mother telling me not to give up was when I was doing some reading software homework that she had assigned me. My mother was in the habit of giving me more work at home in order to help me get better at English, specifically reading comprehension, which I was not very good at. When I got a question wrong using this software, I got very frustrated. I tried to get out of doing the assignment and begged my mother to let me stop working. Mom stayed calm and then encouraged me not to give up, but to keep trying. I kept doing the work and stopped complaining. Sticking with the reading comprehension software helped me to get better. My reading comprehension improved, and I got better grades on school assignments.
Second, I eventually learned to not give up and corrected my misbehavior. From the time I was seven years old, I started behaving badly. I have autism and acted out because of sensory issues and because I felt misunderstood all the time. I got kicked out of a school and eventually went to a private school for children with autism that have behavior problems, Plan Bee Academy in Chesapeake, VA. Mom did not give up on me, and I chose to believe that I could do better. It was not easy, but I worked hard to behave more appropriately. I eventually was able to enroll in inclusion classes for the last year of middle school and, later, for high school. I also took my schoolwork seriously and got mostly As and Bs.
Thirdly, I learned not to give up on how to interact with people. When people reject me, it hurts, but I approach and talk to other people. Because of my autism, sometimes people think I’m strange. I had to learn to stop staring at pretty girls and to not just speak to people about what I wanted to talk about. I learned to do things a bit differently through role play with mom and my mentor, Mr. Eric James. I also got a lot of help by participating in an after school teen organization in Norfolk, VA called Teens With a Purpose. I made friends here and found an outlet for performing on my keyboard. If I had given up and simply decided to keep to myself, I would have not had these experiences.
In conclusion, I plan to continue to not give up. I owe it to myself. As I go to college, I know it will sometimes be challenging, but I will be a student who loves to learn and strives to do my best.
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What happens to children with autism, when they become adults? | Kerry Magro | TEDxMorristown (youtube.com)Â
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.
