As someone who was told that an Autism diagnosis meant that you cannot achieve your dreams, I want to provide hope for those who were told that they aren’t going to be like other children their age. I was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder in 1995 when the rate was 1 in 500. When I was working one of previous jobs, someone told me one day I would eventually find a way to “Pay It Forward”. It took me a while to figure out what how I would; Eventually I ended up starting off my...
As someone who was told that an Autism diagnosis meant that you cannot achieve your dreams, I want to provide hope for those who were told that they aren’t going to be like other children their age. I was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder in 1995 when the rate was 1 in 500. When I was working one of previous jobs, someone told me one day I would eventually find a way to “Pay It Forward”. It took me a while to figure out what how I would; Eventually I ended up starting off my journey into the ESE world by starting off as a paraprofessional before eventually becoming a part time teacher who pushed into classrooms and now I teach my own classroom of kindergartners in an ASD unit where I have educated kindergarteners from an environment where they did not have a structured learning environment to having students who have excelled behaviorally and educationally including a student who has scored in the 99th percentile on state testing in Florida, I cannot wait to help continue to educate students and pay it forward to the next generation of students. I also want to be the inspiration to those who have been told you won’t achieve anything in your life.
