I too have been humbled and impressed by the other people’s stories in the Five Things meme so here are mine:

1. I am baffled by other people’s fascination with professional sports.

I can identify with playing a sport – I just cannot understand the motivation behind the activity and entire economies driven by watching, talking, and writing about sports. That a city cares whether or not it has a football team and whether they have a nice stadium when at the same time its schools suck makes no sense to me. That a soccer fan needs to throw a beer bottle at someone who does not like their team makes no sense to me.

2. My family set me up to meet a girl they thought I’d like – and it worked.

I met my wife Janet at a family Thanksgiving dinner after months of my family telling me “oh, we want you to meet this girl we think you’ll like.” We’ve been together since that day in 1987.

3. I am an Astrophysicist by education.

My career in software was a profitable side-effect. In school I was interested in everything and focusing on one thing to get a degree was a challenge. Science seemed to be a recurring interest and my employer at the time (Hewlett-Packard) would pay tuition in that area so I chose to major in physics. After my BS I changed schools to work on a Masters. I was at Cal. State Northridge and they had a world class solar observatory and the astronomers were nice to work with so my M.S. in Physics was based on research into the solar magnetic field structure’s relationship with gas brightness and velocity. For my Ph.D. I wanted to work on something other than solar astronomy so amongst the multitude of choices I had (I think it was two) I joined the astronomy department at Indiana University, Bloomington. I was there five and a half years and finished my coursework, my Physics and Astronomy Ph.D. qualifying exams, and made good progress on my dissertation research. However, family and financial pressures precluded my staying the extra one or two years it would have taken to complete my Ph.D so I left IU with a “thank you for playing” Masters in Astronomy. In the mean time I had picked up good programming skills that people were very interested in paying me for.

4. I am an artist by inclination.

My family is populated mainly by performing artists and musicians. Throughout my life I have built things with my hands and the design and construction of structures of fantasy remains my hobby. I’ve focused on model railroading but I also draw and build other 3D art forms. The artist in me determines whether I’m interested in a project: if there’s room for creativity I’m interested. If you just need me to turn the crank, I’d rather be digging ditches.

5. I’m a recovering Aspie (link)

This might be something you already know. In which case my not realizing you know is a demonstration that I have Asperger’s Syndrome. That’s an Aspie joke.

I was not diagnosed until I was in my 30s. I had always known I had to work especially hard at things that appear easy to people around me and all my life I have been known as “really smart – but weird.” It has been really helpful to have a diagnosis. It hasn’t changed anything I do but it has helped me feel vastly better about the coping mechanisms I employ. I still have most of the traditional problems Asperger’s deal with. Let’s face it, most good software developers are what we call “on the spectrum” so I’ve always fit in really well in good development organizations. However, unenlightened employers almost invariably feel I’m stubborn and arrogant when I’m actually very shy and I strive very hard to be a nice person. As far as being stubborn, I like to think I mitigate it by usually being right (although I now know it usually doesn’t matter that you’re right, I’m still naïve enough to be surprised). Fortunately, I’ve had enough really good employment experiences over the years to be comfortable with what part is me and what part is them.

In my fourth grade class we had a two day workshop put on by representatives from NASA. The Space Race was big in American life at that point. The activity was a simulated mission to Mars with the class divided into mission control and crews of two ships traveling together. On the morning of the first day we were informed that one of the ships had crashed on the surface of Mars and was unable to make the return flight. I was in charge of life support on one of the ships. In a few minutes I provided a solution with charts and resource burn-down graphs. By doing that I effectively ruined the next day and a half of the activity for the whole class.

Soon, after days of tests and interviews I spent less and less time in my regular class and starting in 5th grade was moved to a special class with a only six students (2 each in 4th, 5th, and 6th grades) and told I could study whatever I wanted. I studied the history of transportation, astronomy, puppet theater, building geometric shapes out of manila folders, whatever my interests wandered to. As a class we regularly left school and took a bus downtown to get books out of the San Francisco main branch library as needed since we exhausted the resources of the school library after a couple weeks.

For the next three years I was in the San Francisco schools I never sat in a regular classroom and had the most fun I ever had in school (until graduate school). Every now and then someone would stop by with a textbook and say something like “Dan, you really need to learn some math. Work these chapters, please?” A few days later I’d hand in the work and could go back to following my interests.

When I was middle-school age I moved away from San Francisco. High school and college were much harder. Many teachers mistook my shyness (silence) and inability to flow with the program as stupidity. They would put me in remedial reading one week and only to return me to “A track” (college prep) the next after demonstrating reading over 1200 words per minute (as high as their machine could go). I graduated high school with a D-plus GPA but nearly maxed out my SATs. Only in graduate school and when working on a Ph.D. in astrophysics was I having fun in school again.

I’m a former United States Marine. That probably should make six things you didn’t know about me. I put it here in the Asperger’s portion because many of my most effective coping mechanisms were learned during training in the Corps and I’ll always be grateful for that. I also learned how to get shoes REALLY shiny.

Donations can be made online on our Donate page or sent to our office at:

Autistry Studios
137 Granada Drive
Corte Madera, CA 94925

Donations are tax deductible to the extent your tax situation allows.

Petaluman Julia Pozsgai, 22, has autism, but has excelled in the craft of woodworking. Among her many projects is this coffee table.

Finding her path through art

www.Petaluma360.com

In Julia Pozsgai’s bedroom is a large purple chair. Though she made it herself out of heavy cardboard, its tall back, exaggerated zig-zag design on the back and feet, and royal purple hue make it look more like a whimsical throne than a large piece of cardboard. [see more]

At Autistry we love to build things – models, swords, movies, books, armor, dragons…just about anything! But underneath the projects what we are building is community. We are learning how to help each other reach our goals and how to ask for help when our own goals seem out of reach.

We hold the other end of a board while our classmate saws. We wrap a friend in plastic to help him make a mold for his armor. We give encouragement, praise and critical feedback. And we laugh together, eat together and play together.

Autistry Studios is becoming more than a program for learning skills. It is becoming a community of individuals who understand and accept each other.

Last week a young boy told us he likes Autistry because here he gets “real help from real people.” We are proud of our staff members. Each one is kind, educated, experienced and quirky! Autistry attracts people with wild ideas and boundless energy – both staff and students. Though we are very different there is a like-mindedness that holds us together.

Our vision is to see this community grow wider and deeper – more members, more programs, more opportunities for growth. We want to insure that our students not only acquire vocational skills but create personal bonds that will span a lifetime. Those bonds will be their safety net, giving them strength and support as they grow older.

Everyone has a blast at the Autistry Spinathon. Here is a link to some photos of last year’s fun! This year our goal is “A Butt on Every Bike!”

Hope to see you there!

To buy seats online go to our Pay for Spin and Sizzle Page

The core mission of Autistry Studios is supporting the transition of ASD youth to whatever level of adult independence each individual is capable of achieving. Our Core Workshops and our new Drama Workshops prepare students for adult life by exercising and growing executive skills while building confidence and mental resiliency. These skills combined support real time decision-making and the ability to act on decisions – the abilities needed to successfully work and create.

Our existing Core Workshops include a range of activities that could be characterized as going from “play” to “playful work.” Last year, as Autistry grew to including a growing adult student body we felt a need for more direct employment training: An employment program which could be thought of as picking up from “playful work” and transitioning into “realistic work.”

Importance of Work

Meaningful work is how we establish our identity, maintain our independence, and construct a real relationship with our community. Without appropriate opportunities to work our students are denied independence, denied an adult identity, and denied a real place in our community.

Building the ability to work is fundamental to fulfilling our mission supporting transition for ASD youth.

Our programs have always been driven by the needs of the students with whom we work. Our students today need initial work experience in safe situations where they can explore and learn initial job skills, practice social skills, and cultivate their work ethic.

Initial experiments

Our first experience providing work was to have students work extra hours doing chores around our workshop areas. This was a gentle extension of their normal workshop schedule. This succeeded to some extent but highlighted requirements a more robust program would need to meet:

• Increased structure – more work hours per week.
• A mix of routine: repeated tasks in which deep competency can be built up as well as unique tasks exercising problem solving skills.
• Measured amounts of social interaction appropriate to the employee’s social skills.
• Work objectives that are real and meaningful to the employees.

Our new employment programs for Q3-Q4 2011

Based on the lessons we have learned and to the extent that funding permits, we will be rolling out several internal direct employment businesses to which Autistry students would be eligible to apply starting summer of 2011.

In the past these internal businesses would have been called sheltered work programs but the current trend is to call programs like these Social Enterprises. This is a wide ranging term for any program that applies capitalistic strategies to achieving philanthropic goals. In our usage we will be calling these new Autistry Studios employment projects Autistry Enterprises.

The goal of the Autistry Enterprises is to set up a cluster of internal businesses that feed business to each other as well as outside businesses and customers much as a Japanese keiretsu (network of companies) functions.

Autistry Publishing

A couple of our students are in the process of writing books which will be published by Autistry Studios. In addition to the direct processes of producing content, digital textblock, illustrations, and actually printing books we will be handling ISBN registration and setting up sales and delivery channels.

This Autistry enterprise will feed business into Autistry IT (website, e-commerce, technical support) and Autistry Figures (figure from the books) – both described below.

Autistry Railroad

The Autistry RR will produce model structure kits in cut-and-fold, cast plaster, cast resin, and eventually laser-cut wood and plastic formats. This company will employ designers working on CAD systems, technical writers/illustrators making instruction material, workers producing and packaging kit materials while maintaining inventory, and workers handling and fulfilling orders.

This Autistry enterprise will feed business into Autistry Publishing (printed materials, packaging) and Autistry IT (website, e-commerce, technical support).

Autistry Figures

Autistry Figures will produce customized figures in many formats. Some will be hand painted figures available commercially; others will be complete custom creations.

This Autistry enterprise will feed business into Autistry Publishing (printed materials, packaging) and Autistry IT (website, e-commerce, technical support).

Autistry IT

Autistry IT will provide computer hardware and software support to Autistry Studios and Autistry Enterprises. It will produce and manage websites for all the Autistry activities including e-commerce capabilities.

Next Steps

We have the resources to start the Autistry Enterprises but they will need significant direct family support to grow to a point where they can provide paid employment.

We are coming up on the 3rd anniversary of Autistry Studios (once known as The Barn Project). We are looking back at our journey in amazement and we are looking to our future with renewed passion. As Autistry Studios continues to grow, so does our vision. Autistry has truly become a center for learning and we are humbled by how much we are educated by our students with each workshop. We are using this knowledge to further develop our model and refine our approach. In this first of a series of mini-articles we would like to share some of these insights and what they mean for the future of Autistry.

Perhaps the biggest change in the Core Workshops over the last three years has been increasing the age range and verbal range of students in the program. Initially we focused only on high verbal high-school age students, convinced that lower verbal and older individuals would not benefit from our programs.

When we were approached by families with older children and some with children with lower verbal ability we decided to see if our program would work for them. We quickly experienced for ourselves the simple truth: regardless of one’s age the mind continues to learn. This revelation gave us so much hope – that learning does occur across the life-span. It doesn’t stop at 20. For any individual student this means long term goals can be ambitious, it is just a question of appropriate intermediate steps and time. This holds for the low verbal students as well. Over time they continue to learn, therefore over a long enough time span of appropriate challenges they too can reach impressive goals.

The second lesson we learned is that building a solid relationship with each student is essential. Each student needs to be seen and to feel heard. They need to experience themselves reflected back in a positive light. Many students come to Autistry having experienced negative social interaction at school or in recreational programs. They often do not understand why they have difficulty making friends or sustaining friendships. During the initial relationship building phase we take the time to get to know the student. In this process, we also share ourselves. It is not a one-sided interaction, but a lively and dynamic exchange. It takes time to understand someone and even longer to learn to trust them. But when we achieve mutual respect and trust the learning can really begin. That is when, as one student put it, “They really get me.” This is the very foundation of our work.

Once we build the relationship, we find that students are more likely to reveal their personal challenges without defensiveness. Our workshops teach skills but our instructors also model problem-solving, exploration, making mistakes and bouncing back from them. Each new project represents a leap into the unknown and our role is to serve as the guide to this unfamiliar territory. It is our belief that each project fosters a developmental leap, which in turn points the way to the next challenge.

We have found that it is imperative to assess the developmental level of each student, because it helps us understand how they are seeing the world and what challenges they are attempting to navigate. Chronological age and developmental age are often quite different. As parents and as service providers we often forget that a basic issue of autism is developmental delay. And it is not a global delay because another fundamental issue of ASD is uneven development; different aspects of the individual mature at different rates. One may be academically advanced yet emotionally behind. One may be physically mature yet intellectually unsophisticated. We believe that in order for a student to advance we must embrace all their different strengths and weaknesses.

Autistry has become far more than a 4-hour workshop; it is a model to support ASD teens and adults in transition. Membership in our Core Workshop Program includes the following services:

1. One on one student check-ins with licensed MFT during course of workshop
2. Developmental Assessment – a written report of our observations of the students’ skill level and emotional maturity (presented at end of semester)
3. One family meeting per semester to address transitional planning and clinical issues
4. Monthly parent support group
5. College homework support

We also offer additional counseling support to individuals, groups and families. We are available for 1:1 mentoring sessions, tutoring and consultation.

Our mission is to support teens and adults with ASD in making the transition from their current situation to secondary schooling and/or meaningful vocation. For some, this may be a shorter path, but for most of our students it is a bumpy road filled with twists and unexpected turns. And though we pride ourselves on helping our students improve executive functioning, the ability to have meaningful relationships and gain valuable vocational skills, we strive most of all to instill a sense of resiliency. It is this quality that will allow them to fall off the horse and get right back on it. It is resiliency that will keep them receptive to learning and open to taking risks despite the obstacles along the way. At Autistry, we hold the conviction that individuals, be they in their teens, 20’s, 30’s or 40’s can and will progress if they are simultaneously supported and challenged.

Our next installment will be Liz’s thoughts on a new Drama Theater Workshop program.

Many parents worry their adult children’s basic needs for employment, housing, transportation, social interactions, recreation, healthcare and financial security will not be met:

• Only 11% of parents of adult children with disabilities report their child is employed full time.

• Just 6 in 10 parents of adult children with a disability rate their child’s quality of life as excellent or good (61%), compared to 8 in 10 parents of adults without a disability (82%).

• Huge gaps exist in parents of adults with disabilities’ assessment of their child’s ability to manage their own finances (34% vs. 82% parents of adults without disabilities) and have the life skills necessary to live independently (30% vs. 83% parents of adults without disabilities).

• Nearly 7 in 10 adults with disabilities (69%) live with their parent(s) or guardian; only 17% live independently compared to more than half of adult children without disabilities (51%).

These are the very concerns that we hope Autistry Studios can help address for individuals and families living with ASD and other related communication/social disorders.

Best Practices slide deck

If you attended, please comment on any resources you’d like us to add and I’ll expand this post.