An Initiative for Autism by Sara

An Initiative for Autism by Sara - January 2017 Scholarship Essay

It was a Sunday morning and I was following the same routine I had for months. But this time, as I approached the door, I could hear his voice wailing. I stood at the door in anticipation. His mother, Beth, greeted me with a face that perfectly displayed the home’s environment. “Eli is having one of his rough days,” she explained. I discovered he was forced to shower early in the day than his usual due to an incident in the mud. His sister, Erin, had also been practicing piano all day for her upcoming recital. He was an absolute emotional mess.
For most, this would not cause a huge disruption. The majority of people have the ability to adapt and communicate efficiently enough to function smoothly on a daily basis. Eli is different. Eli struggles with maintaining eye contact. Eli can’t always process or understand the connotation of his words. Eli has to maintain a very restrictive diet and does not like to accept a change of routine and prefers to control his environment. And, honestly, I have never met anyone more impactful and inspiring than this 11-year old boy with autism.
After an only six month period of weekly visits with Eli, “I want to play with Sara now.” have become some of my favorite words to hear. This dramatic change from his initially distant and disdain attitude is only the surface of improvement that has occurred between us. I have had the pleasure of witnessing him begin to glow after changing his diet to change his brain chemistry and I have observed as he gradually began comprehending my social cues.
In the Son-Rise program of which I am a part of, I am trained to interact with Eli with the intention of improving his social abilities. I have read books and watch videos on autism under the Son-rise initiative throughout my time with the child, As social interaction is a daily necessity in order to function in the real world, the idea is of the program is if one improves their social abilities, the rest will follow. Goals that have been set for Eli include increasing his interactive attention span, participating in others activities, and maintaining eye contact in conversation. In just the six months I have known Eli, he now voluntarily keeps eye contact when we talk and has been slowly adapting to other nonverbal cues. He even is starting to make friends on his own which appeared as an impossibility at first.
Eli has fought against his urge for silent routines and social struggles to let me into his life as I have learned more than just symptoms by working with him. Eli has taught me more about interaction and passion (he loves anything “buildable”, especially if its army-related) then I have learned from any school or sleepover. This inspires me to continue my work with children with autism in my community. As I will be a college freshman next year, I plan to create a club at my university that focuses on informing other students on the reality for children with mental and behavioral disorders. The club will also encourage outreach programs with direct contact with children and fundraise for further research. As I plan to pursue a degree in neuroscience, this initiative follows right in line with my career goals, and similar community engagement will always be an initiative in my life.