By: Melissa Reese

Dear Reader,

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     My motivation for creating this multi genre project came from a few different sources, one of them being a self contained classroom full of amazing autistic students that I had the pleasure of substitute teaching. As the day progressed and I got to know a little about the students, it was extremely enlightening to watch the levels of intelligence shine through, even though not all of the students could speak or write. I also know a few inspiringly strong parents of an autistic child, and have been very impressed by their positive outlook and drive to provide the best life and education possible for their son. I know yet another little boy who's mother tells me has been diagnosed with autism, but he strikes me as a fairly normal little boy, so it peaked my curiosity on the differences between diagnosis.

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     Often times when a person hears the word autism, the worst case scenarios spring to their mind such as a person that will never speak or be able to care for themselves. While doing research for this project, I found it quite interesting to learn that many autistic people are in fact above average in intelligence. Throughout this project, I hope to provide you with a deeper insight to autism and the different variations of the diagnosis, and show that being autistic does not automatically mean unintelligent, incapable, or unsuccessful.

 

I completed this project by searching the internet as well as conducting a personal interview with the mother of an autistic child. I think the most difficult part of this project was paring down all of the information that is available, as there is quite a lot of really good resources  and information to choose from. I hope you enjoy perusing this project as much as I enjoyed creating it.