Hi, Im Evelyn Peña and I'm an associate
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
accomodations that are resonable and
appropriate, to students.
I think that what I have learned is
universities and disabilities offices specifically
do a much better job when they go about
and beyond their ADA
So what's required by the ADA
usually I see proper team member
the staff