Happy World Autism Awareness Day. My very first diary in 2009 was for Wold Autism Awareness Day, though I'm pretty sure I missed the actual day. I've written a diary on April 2nd every year since. I haven't been very active here lately, but I realized that today is World Autism Awareness Day, and I see no diary on the recent diary list.
I don't want to let this day pass unrecognized on Daily Kos.
So--my burning passion of late has been job training for autistic youth. Tim Cook of Apple, the company whose existence supports countless youth on the spectrum, is looking to leave his fortune to others, rather than passing it onto family, so I thought I'd take my shot at funding, long though it may be. Here's a letter to Tim Cook, in honor of World Autism Awareness Day, offered in honor of autistic youth everywhere.
Dear Mr. Cook:
My name is Sharon Castellanos (yes that's my name I'm pretty sure anyone who would like could find it in 30 seconds) and I’m writing to you today to ask your help on an issue near and dear to my family and approximately one million other American families.
My daughter Ellie is 15 years old and is autistic. Ellie is a wonderful and amazing kid. Like all kids, she has her strengths and her challenges. Communication has never been a strong suit with her, at least not using words, but she’s an incredibly self-sufficient kid who has found ways to get herself what she needs and use her limited speech to get help with what she can’t get for herself.
Like many autistic kids, Apple products have been a lifeline for her. She is a talented artist, and uses her ipad and apple desktop to link an astounding array of apps, music, original photographs, polymer clay sculpture, drawing and screengrabs to create original artwork that is breathtakingly creative. At the risk of sounding like I’m plugging, I’d ask you to take a minute or two to visit her website, www.elliecastellanos.com, and take a look at some of her art. I don’t think you’ll regret it. You’ll have a hard time getting to know Ellie in a conversation but I think you can really see how bright, funny and big hearted she is when looking at her creations.
The CDC says that 1 in 68 kids today are autistic, and given that there are 74 million kids in America today, that means there are somewhere in the vicinity of one million kids on the Autistic spectrum. While there is a big push by organizations like Autism Speaks to seek funding for more research into the causes of autism and early treatment, there is a stark lack of services and overall funding for older kids who have grown out of the system and are beyond any “cure” and will never “grow out of” autism.
These are young men and women with talents, with drive, and with skills. They face an astonishingly high unemployment rate. High rates of depression go hand in hand with social skill challenges and empty days with little to do.
Kids like Ellie are not well served by underfunded and overcrowded public schools. She’s receiving job training at her high school right now, but they don’t have the facilities or the know how to provide the kid of job training that can help Ellie take advantage of her natural talents with technology and art to thrive and support herself for the rest of her life. She creates beautiful artwork using simple apps like PicCollage. Imagine what she could do with training in programs like Illustrator, FinalCut, and Mixxx.
Ellie needs specialized education. She can not sit in a classroom with twenty kids and learn anything worth knowing. She needs one on one instruction by a trained, experienced professional who not only needs to be proficient in their area of expertise, but needs to be able to work successfully with autistic people.
It can be done and I’ve seen it done. When Ellie sits in a classroom with one teacher and fifteen kids, her abilities might be on a third or fourth grade level. When she’s paired with an experienced instructor, she can and has learned how to create 2-D animation using Adobe Flash. It only took a week for her to learn the fundamentals.
You probably are asking yourself what I want. What I would like is a meeting with you, which I recognize is a tall order. I would be more than satisfied with an audience with one of your staff to discuss a variety of opportunities where someone like yourself could make a significant impact. I believe that Silicon Valley is the ideal place to implement job training programs for autistic young men and women in the fields of technology, media and digital art. I’ve seen it done in other cities with tremendous success and would like to see the Bay Area be on the leading edge in providing futures to autistic young people.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope to hear from you soon, and I very much hope you enjoy looking over Ellie’s art work. Many people have remarked to me over the years that her art puts a smile on their face for the rest of the day.