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