In her job as a wildlife biologist, Sarah is responsible for monitoring wildlife populations and environmental compliance. In addition to childhood influences, she credits her success to more recent mentors as well.
My pathway to getting my first wildlife job was through the back door. My stepmother had an acquaintance, Anne Wallace, who was a wildlife biologist in environmental consulting. I set up an informational interview with her. After that meeting, I sent her an email every month for the next year just to keep in contact. She eventually offered me a shortterm job as an independent sub-consultant to her. I did that for only about a month and then her business partner offered me my next job, which was for several months. Later, with this experience, the contacts I had developed, and a reference from Anne, I applied for and was offered a job with a different environmental consulting firm.
Anne was a mentor and has become a friend as well. I appreciate her positivity, kindness, and integrity, which she passed on to me. With her help, I was able to get into my career field, which meant, and means, so much to me.
My autism helps me at work. I am distracted easily, so I am distracted by the presence of every wildlife species moving, sounding, or occurring in my area. This makes detection of wildlife much easier and benefits me in my job of gathering a species list. I have good attention to detail and the ability to do monotonous tasks, like monitoring an animal, for long periods of time. My need to follow rules also helps me because in my job there are many firm rules that must be followed.
I actually met my husband through my work, and he has been my trainer and mentor as well. He has been patient with me, helped me with job contacts, given me wildlife work that was exciting and rewarding, and also helped me refine my social manners.
PATRICK, 26
Aspiring Voice-Over Artist Diagnosed with Asperger’s
Patrick began working with Debra when he was 18 and continued until age 26, when she retired from active practice. He has made great strides in his independence and life skills. From initially spending his days either sleeping or isolated in his room playing video games, he has come full circle and is now pursuing his passion in doing voice-over work, a field that is the direct result of a childhood obsession.
He has had the support of several critical mentors along the way—his parents, his beloved Aunt Mary, his voice coach Cammie Winston, and even a well-known voice-over artist in Hollywood.
His aunt describes him as an infant and toddler:
Even though Patrick was her first son, my sister Ginny knew from the beginning that he responded differently from other infants. He screamed bloody murder at the top of his lungs. Visually, his world seemed to be different, and things that didn’t bother others frightened him. He couldn’t distinguish between himself and objects. If he spilled milk, he would scream and cry and be angry at the milk. If he fell out of a chair and knocked up against a wall, he would hit the wall and yell, “bad wall!” He was so easily overwhelmed. Once he touched a tree with moss growing on it and went ballistic, screaming and crying. He hated the sensory feeling. I tried to explain the purpose of moss and how it was part of God’s natural world. He screamed, “I hate God! Why did he make these things?”
One of Patrick’s obsessions as a toddler was watching TV, and he particularly loved commercials and cartoons. He would sit and stare endlessly and soak it all up. What no one realized at the time was that he was memorizing all the voices and actually consciously practicing how to precisely place his tongue and constrict his throat in order to mimic them exactly.
We never discouraged him from making his sounds as long as it was at home, not in public. But that took active intervention on our part. He’d run around the house doing different voices and then would think it was OK to do that in the park or at the grocery store, too. We taught him that the reason it wasn’t permitted in the store was that there were other people there, and they were there for a specific reason, and it was not to hear his voices. We never yelled at him; we would explain and redirect him.
Patrick’s path to work as a voice-over artist still has its challenges. What is making it possible is a combination of his unique thinking style and abilities, combined with the persistent “push” of those who love him and are finding clever ways of creating opportunities for him.
Along the way, Patrick has obtained his driver’s license, taken improvisation classes, used his vocal talent as a volunteer to record books for the Society for the Blind, and broadened his horizons in many areas ranging from diet to travel. You’ll learn more about the specific steps and the people who have helped keep him moving in the right direction in the following chapters.
Patrick’s early special interest in sounds first took the form of “voicing” his toys.
The Three Necessary Components of Your Child’s Success
1. Avoiding Learned Helplessness
2. Learning Optimism and Resisting Habitual Negative Thinking
3. The Critical Impact of Mentors
Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re probably right.
—Henry Ford
A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself.
—Oprah Winfrey
Each of the people whose stories you just read encountered unique challenges and struggles. Yet they found strategies and support that helped them move on and create meaningful, productive lives. We’re going to give you examples of how they did it.
A recurring theme in each of the stories was that every person kept moving forward even in the face of obstacles. They discovered how to stay positive enough to continue to develop. They didn’t give in to their doubts, and they didn’t quit when they hit obstacles.
Others were often there to help them, making sure they didn’t withdraw into isolation, inactivity, or helplessness. Family members and others supported them in staying hopeful and finding opportunities. Also, every single person profiled mentioned at least one adult who exposed him or her to new ideas, to new ways of thinking about themselves, and to novel experiences. These components helped pave the way to each person’s success.
They weren’t a coddled group of kids. Their parents were all unique—some were absent, some were struggling just to provide, and some were handling large families with their share of crisis points. One common denominator was that each person profiled was encouraged and “stretched” just outside their comfort zone by at least one adult in their life. This helped keep them positive and prevented them from falling into chronic learned helplessness, a condition that is frequently embedded in autistic kids and which we’ll introduce you to in this chapter.
Start by Creating a Positive Mindset
Always praise your child’s tangible actions. Generalities can be confusing or unusable by those on the autism spectrum. So when you say, “You’re such a great kid,” or “You can do anything you set your mind to,” these are well intended, but will not be as effective as a specific reference. Instead say, “You did
