Hi, Im Evelyn Peña and I'm an associate professor at Cal Lutheran University. I am also the director of the Autism Communications Center, which is the center that focuses on inclusion, communication, access, and higher education, for people with autism or autistic individuals. This is my son, Diego Peña, he is doing a camio today and Diego would like to introduce himself using the letter board since he is non speaking. So he has his communication partner with him and they are going to spell out something. (Communication Partner) H.E.L.L.O. A.L.L. Hello all. Ok, back straight. M.Y. N.A M.E. I.S. D.I E.G.O. Hello all, my name is Deigo. Evelyn: Awesome, so just a little bit about Deigo, he is going into 7th grade. He is fully included in general education and he is a presenter at conferences and a best selling book author of the book, Anatomy of Autism, so that is us and we're excited to be here. So, Diego is really excited to talk about inclusion, not only in his book but also share his thoughts. I think that is so important in relation to the Americans with Disability Act because it provided an avenue for inclusion in the community, higher education, and employment. As a young activist, Diego has experienced inclusion in school so he wanted to share some words that he typed out. He is going to share them through his iPad , which he calls his talker. (iPad): I think the culture of inclusion is important to have in order to implement strategies be successful for autistic students in a general education classroom. Without inclusion, I wouldn't be able to be in general education setting. Having autism has limited me both verbally and physically. I thankfully have access to communication by typing and this form of communicaion has given me opportunity to be included in general education classes and activities in the community. Evelyn: Thanks, Diego. So the first time I really learned about the Disabilities Act was when I was researching what it would take to support my son, Diego, He's autistic, you just met him, to go to college essentially. When I learned he had autism I didn't know anything about whether or not people had access to college if they had a diagnosis of autism or what the precedent was for that. So, I really started looking into it and I did learn that, yes, autistic students do go to college. Which is wonderful. At that time this was, you know, when Diego was diagnosed. It was 8 years ago or 10 years ago and there wasn't a lot of research out there on autistic students going to college. So, that was one area where I'm excited that I've been able to do research and publish some work on how we can support autistic studetns to go to college and become successful. But, really the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) is so important for autistic students and students with disabilites in general, just to make sure that they have access to academic curriculums, that they are getting accommidations that they need to be successful in academic settings. So, I really feel that the ADA has been a key factor in making sure that students with disabilities are included in college and university settings. Certainly the ADA has provided a lot of opportunities for students with disabilities. So, I'm grateful for that. I think there are some areas that we need to think about, that the ADA does have some limitations. One of them is that, many disablility service offices on campuses at higher education institutions require diagnosis or documentation of neuropsychological evaluation and this can cost upwards of several thousand dollars for individuals to get this diagnosis. So I think there has been a lot of progress lately where those offices are saying, "Ok well, we will consider the IEP document and your individual education plan from high school as a form to validate that you do need services". But one thing we do need to work on a little more is making sure that higher education institutions, specifically the disabiblity offices, are a bit more flexible in making sure that students can recieve accomidations without dropping 3 or 4 thousand dollars, in order to do that. The other thing that I think about a lot is, while the ADA does provide important accomidations that are resonable and appropriate, to students. I think that what I have learned