BY OLIVIA COBISKEY SVN REPORTER ocobiskey@svnmail.com
DIXON - Barbara Protopapa wants people to understand what it means to be a woman with autism.
"When they say it's a man's world, it's a man's world," Protopapa said. "You don't hear about women on the spectrum."
She knows that 80 percent of people diagnosed with autism are male, however, as estimates about the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder continue to increase, so does the number of girls who are diagnosed - one in three, she said.
Girls are usually diagnosed with more severe forms of autism and girls are the only ones diagnosed with an extremely severe form, Retts, she added.
"Everything I've read about women with autism, the only ones you hear about are Temple Grandin and Donna Williams," said Protopapa, 35, of Youngstown, Ohio. "I would like to see more attention geared toward women."
Protopapa was one of four autistic adults to share their stories at the third annual Future Horizons Conference on Autism and Asperger's Syndrome, which wrapped up Friday at the Historic Dixon Theatre.
Protopapa, Jeremy Van Drew, Sean Barron and Maurice Snell held a panel discussion about their experiences, to help parents and educators better understand of what the world looks like through the eyes of an autistic person.
Autism is the third most common developmental disorder in the United States, and recent estimates indicate that up to one in 150 children have a condition in the spectrum of what can be called autism.
Autistic children take longer to learn how to speak, so families must find other ways to communicate - using signs, facial expressions and pictures, for example. Many autistic children are sensitive to strong smells, loud sounds and large crowds, making routine trips outside the home difficult.
Barron, 45, also of Youngstown, and his mother, Judy, highlighted some of those issues in their book "There's a Boy in Here." In it, she would write about an event in their life from her point of view, then he would write about it from.
One of the things he spoke about during the panel discussion was how he would race home each day after school to see the "Gilligan's Island," not because he liked it, but because, "I wanted to memorize the lines of the show because being funny was a much more attractive quality than being bullied all the time."
"I didn't understand the difference between laughed at and someone laughing with you," he said.
For Jeremy's mother, Melissa Van Drew, it was a dream come true to see her son sitting next to Barron, she said.
"This man right here," she said, pointing to Barron, "is why Jeremy is the man he is."
Van Drew read an article on Barron when Jeremy was 5; he's 18 now.
"I said, this kid made it, so why can't Jeremy," she said. "He was one of my first inspirations not to listen to the discouraging reports and keep going on."
The determination of parents and educators not to give up on these children was a common thread throughout the two-day conference.
"You get out of these kids what you put into them. I think that pretty much tells the story," Melissa Van Drew said.
That was true for Maurice Snell's mother, Jennifer Snell.
During the discussion, Snell acknowledged that neither he nor his parents were sure he would graduate from high school, much less college.
"Who would have though a 23-year-old with autism would have his high school diploma and a college degree?" said Snell, who received his bachelor's from St. Xavier University. Like the other panelists, he is independent and working.
For Snell, it has come full circle - he's an administrative assistant at the Easter Seals Therapeutic Day School in Chicago, the school where he first learned to trust and speak.
"It was wonderful to be reunited with a family I'd known for so long," said Snell, whose speech is too measured and whose syntax is awkward. "To be welcomed with open arms."
Reach Olivia Cobiskey at (815) 284-2222 or (800) 798-4085, ext. 535. Reach Olivia Cobiskey at (815) 625-3600 or (800) 798-4085, ext. 535.
