We‘re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation

[00:01] Announcer:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome, everyone, to Principal Center Radio.

[00:13] SPEAKER_00:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to welcome to the program Eric Michael Garcia. Eric is a journalist based in Washington, D.C., who served as an editor and correspondent at numerous outlets, including The Washington Post, The Hill, National Journal, The New Republic, and more. He is a graduate of UNC Chapel Hill and he's the author of We're Not Broken, Changing the Autism Conversation.

[00:37] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:39] SPEAKER_00:

Eric, welcome to Principal Center Radio. Thank you for having me. Tell us a little bit about where this book comes from, because obviously you are a journalist, but there's also a personal angle to this book. Tell us about that, if you would.

[00:52] SPEAKER_01:

So this had to be around 2015. Yeah, 2015. This was in 2015. I went to a party at a friend's house. And a friend of mine, a good guy by the name of Tim Mack, he offered me a drink. And I said, oh, I can't drink because I'm on the autism spectrum and the medicine I take doesn't mix with alcohol.

[01:12]

Later on, I did develop a drinking problem and now I'm sober two years later. But instead of him saying, oh, don't be a loser, like have a shot, you know, he said, oh, that's interesting. There are a lot of autistic people in Washington, D.C. who work in politics, who work in media, who work in a lot of other things. He's like, you should write about that.

[01:33]

And that's kind of a real journalist thing to say, which is like to immediately be curious or like to immediately like want to know more. So like, yeah, he pushed me about it again another time. And then I was like, you know, I'm 24. I was 24 at the time. I was like, I'll do that when I get good at journalism, like when I get better, you know. And, uh, and when I'm later on in my career and I really, as an autistic person, I really didn't want to write about autism when I first got it.

[01:56]

I've always wanted to cover politics and I've always wanted, you know, I was covering economics and politics at the time. I was really happy. It was around 2015. So I was following around Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and all them, like to see if, Elizabeth Warren would run for president against Hillary Clinton, and then eventually when Bernie Sanders did. And then what happened is I was at National Journal at the time, and then the print magazine shut down, or at least they announced the print magazine was going to shut down at the end of the year. And my editor at the time, Richard Just, great guy, lovely human being, I want to have these kind of go for broke kind of pieces.

[02:27]

He's like, I'm going to be out of a job at the end of this. Like, why not make it worth it? So I was like, cool, I'll pitch this piece to him. And I thought it would be kind of a chatty kind of front of the book, kind of DC high society kind of piece. You know what I mean? And then he kind of challenged me.

[02:40]

He's like, well, why should this kind of exist? And I like when editors do that. I said, well, we focus too much on trying to cure autism and not enough on trying to help other people live fulfilling lives. And that was, and he's like, okay, there's your piece. And then around that time, this was around September, this was around 2015. So remember, this was when Donald Trump was starting to run for president and really looked like he could win, or at least looked like he was the front runner for the Republican nomination.

[03:04]

And in one debate, he said, autism has become an epidemic. And he talked about vaccines and all that. And then at the same time, so I grew up in Southern California. And if you remember around kind of like the beginning of 2015, there was that measles outbreak at Disneyland. because a lot of parents weren't vaccinating their kids because they were afraid that vaccine, the MMR vaccine caused autism. So what that said to me was, oh, my God.

[03:33]

So I grew up in Southern California. I know those people aren't, you know, those are a bunch of hippies in California, you know. And then I was like, you know, and Trump, he may be a little weird, but he's still a Republican, you know, an Orthodox Republican, but a Republican nonetheless. Right. And then I so so I basically was like, people are getting bad information about any discussion about autism begins or ends with vaccines. So I wrote that piece for National Journal.

[04:00]

And then somebody talked to me about writing a book, my agent, Heather Jackson. And then so then, you know, started writing it. And then, you know, kind of that that piece argued about stop trying to cure autism. And then the second question was like, well, what would it look like if we actually tried to help autistic people live fulfilling lives? So I decided to set out and look around like, how are we failing autistic people? But also, what can we do?

[04:23]

What are some ideas out there that are trying to help autistic people and could be done on a larger scale? So that's what I did. I went to Nashville, Tennessee. I went to Michigan. I went to West Virginia. I went to San Diego.

[04:36]

I went to the Bay Area of California. I went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I basically traveled the country to try to figure this out. So yeah, that's what happened.

[04:44] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. In the last couple of years, I've started to hear the idea of neurodiversity as kind of an alternative to the idea that autism is a disease or a medical condition that needs to be fixed. How do you use that term or what concepts do you use to talk about autism to reframe some of that thinking, you know, this is a disease?

[05:04] SPEAKER_01:

Certainly. So, I mean, neurodiversity is something that's been going around. It's been an idea that's been going around since the 1990s, going back to Jim Sinclair and Donna Williams and a few other people. And what it essentially argues is that conditions like autism, ADHD, dyspraxia, which I also have, dyslexia, things like that are not failed versions of normal, but are rather variations of humanity and should be accepted. And it's important to say that that doesn't necessarily mean that they don't come with impairments, because a lot of people think that neurodiversity means that autism is a disability. And a lot of neurodiversity activists have tried to incorporate it in the larger disability rights movement.

[05:47]

So it is a disability. I want to be very clear about that. And what it says is that it doesn't say that autism is all good or all lovely. There are certainly impairments that come with it. But what they argue is that it should be accepted just as people accept deaf people or just as we accept and create accommodations for blind people or just as we did for people with polio. are people who live with polio, but you know, thankfully we had the polio vaccine, but we still made the world adaptable to them.

[06:15]

In fact, a lot of the people who were instrumental in passing the Americans with Disabilities Act were people with polio. And like, of course they wanted the polio vaccine to eradicate polio, but they all, we also did make the world more adaptable for autistic people. And in this way, a lot of autistic people have kind of said that they don't want to be cured of autism, but they just want to have the world be adaptable. And to also ameliorate the kind of condition, the things that do make it an impairment. But like the main thing is that it's not so much they themselves who are disabled, it's that the world around them is disabled. It kind of goes to the social model of disability and it says that the real thing that we have to overcome is ableism more than actually overcoming our autism.

[06:54] SPEAKER_00:

Right, this kind of mismatch between the way the world works or the way the world expects individuals to think and to operate. Changing some of that in the same way that putting a ramp at the front of every building and not just stairs, makes it accessible to more people.

[07:08] SPEAKER_01:

Or putting Braille on like a label, like so that people who are blind can read. Like, yes, there is an impairment with being blind, but that doesn't mean that you can't live a good and fulfilling life. And it doesn't mean that the thing that's really disabling blind people is that there isn't, you know, that there aren't, you know, enough...

[07:25] SPEAKER_00:

accessible things well let's talk about some of the the different domains of life that that you explore life and work and you know living in society as a person with autism you know because i think for a lot of people these are invisible systems right there are there are these invisible kinds of rules and and kind of uh points of inaccessibility that people run into that may not be obvious. So yeah, take us into some of that if you would.

[07:51] SPEAKER_01:

Certainly. So one of the things I thought about when I was starting to write about this was thinking about, so one of the things I should also be clear about is I was born in 1990, the year that the Americans with Disabilities Act passed. And I was also born in 1990, which was also the year that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was reauthorized from being the Education for Handicapped Children Act. So I think what a lot of people don't recognize is that we are a product of the systems and these kind of principles and people know is that there's A lot of this kind of submerged policy that creates the choices that we can make. So a lot of people talk about personal responsibility or it's about the choices you can make. But it's also as much about like what options you're given as any kind of person, whether you're black or white, disabled, not disabled, whatever.

[08:36]

So one of the things that I was really curious about is, OK, what are difficulties that autistic people face in higher education? I didn't focus as much as I probably should have on K-12 education because I felt like there's been a lot of focus on K-12 education. But a lot of autistic people are growing up. You know, a lot of autistic people do grow up. You know, autism has been almost as long as humanity has been, I'm sure. But like I wanted to focus on K-12 and also on top of that, I wanted to focus on unemployment and employment and poverty.

[09:03]

I also wanted to focus on independent living and focus on health care and the kind of discrimination that autistic people face in the health care system. And then also I focused heavily on relationships and families and then also race and gender and then politics as well and autistic people getting into the political sphere. So those were kind of the things that I was really focused on.

[09:24] SPEAKER_00:

Again, you're a professional journalist, political reporter. How have you experienced, do you run into other working professionals with autism that you've had a chance to kind of compare notes with?

[09:35] SPEAKER_01:

Certainly I do. I mean, I think I live in Washington, D.C. I think that just by virtue of a lot of disability centers and a lot of research centers here being in Washington, D.C., whether it's the NIH or whether it's the, you know, HHS or whether it's You know, the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee is based here as well because through the NIH and, you know, so you wind up and then there's also a lot of autism research going on at the Pentagon.

[09:58]

So in the D.C., Maryland, Virginia area, there is a there are a lot of autistic people. So I encounter quite a few of them. And then there are some autistic people I know in Capitol Hill or who are lobbyists or who are advocates. And really, it wasn't until I moved to Washington, D.C. that I met others, that I kind of met what you could call an autistic community.

[10:17]

So that's interesting, first and foremost. But yeah, I do definitely encounter autistic people and kind of compare notes. And there is kind of a... There is kind of an autism community, much like there is a very big black community in Washington, D.C., and just like there's a very, very big Jewish community in Washington, D.C., and a big LGBTQ population.

[10:37]

I live in a neighborhood with a large gay population, and it's a place where a lot of gay people can feel comfortable being gay. Even if there are some other problems elsewhere, you know, within that community, just like there are demons within any other community.

[10:52] SPEAKER_00:

I want to maybe talk about, well, I don't want to get too far away from the ideas in the book. So pull me back anytime you want to where you go in the book. But one of the concepts that is a little bit difficult for people to understand when it comes to autism is simply the wide spectrum. For those of us who grew up watching movies like Rain Man, we have a very, very narrow perspective on what it can be like to live with autism. And we think, surely people who are in professional jobs, lobbyists and journalists and things like that, surely can't have autism. What are you seeing now that there is more support, more acceptance, more opportunity for people across the spectrum?

[11:29] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I think what's interesting is that we're really seeing the effects of, so I mentioned that I was born the year the ADA and the IDEA was passed. Those were really crucial because what happened was the IDEA specifically included autism disability, which previous versions of like the Education for Handicapped Children Act didn't include autism. They thought of it because we thought of it as a mental disorder. So what's happening now, and that's not to say that people with mental disorders don't deserve rights and don't deserve all the same things that disabled people were, but they just, it was miscategorized and it wasn't a disability. So this says that, you know, They're entitled to certain services, and this law protects them. So what's happening is you're now seeing a lot of autistic people who received educational services and accommodations, no matter how small those accommodations were or how meager they were.

[12:15]

I'm sure a lot of you know that the federal government was supposed to fund about 40% of IDEA, but it's only ever funded around 14%. So that means the states and localities have to shoulder the cost. So I don't want to take that away. But at the same time, it's odd how much just like a little bit of creaking open the door has meant eons of improvement for a lot of autistic people. And at the same time, it's also meant that you get that little bit of accommodation. You're also aware of how unequal things are.

[12:50]

You know, so I'll give you an example. I grew up in a largely, you know, I grew up in Southern California, as I mentioned. I grew up where there were just a lot of Mexican-Americans. And I grew up with a very big, you know, with my extended family was very Mexican-American. It wasn't until I moved to North Carolina and it wasn't until I grew up and I started living in Washington, D.C. that I realized how uncommon that was.

[13:11]

And so now you're seeing a lot of autistic people now recognizing even with those small accommodations, they've been able to make massive improvements. But then also the ones who have fallen through the cracks, They also recognize because they see other autistic people thrive almost, they realize like, wait a minute, how come this is unequal? And they realize that there's been unequal access in that the promises guaranteed in the law have been unequally distributed. So one of the things I noticed when I was writing and reporting this book was I realized How many, I interviewed many incredible autistic people who are writers and analysts and thinkers, but for whatever reason, they weren't able to have as much success as I did. And really that came down to where they were born, what their status was in life, where they went to school, if they could even go to college.

[14:07]

And also like whether their parents and their family and loved ones accepted them. So it was all this kind of multi-pronged thing. And then I realized that, okay, I've kind of benefited from this because I had good teachers and I had professors and I had, you know, administrators and I had a good family. But it's very scattershot. And if you don't have all those things lined up, then you're not going to be able to succeed. So I think that's one of the things that I've been able to see that autistic people who we would consider quote-unquote low-functioning, who I prefer to say have higher support needs, succeed.

[14:40]

And then we've also seen people with quote-unquote high-functioning, who I prefer to say have lower support needs, languish. And it's because of these policy gaps, right?

[14:50] SPEAKER_00:

So I think back to some of the stereotypes, I think it's not terribly surprising to people to see people with autism end up in technical fields as mathematicians or computer scientists. I have several friends who are computer scientists. And you mentioned the importance of just the supports that help everyone, the access, the resources. I'm thinking like, I want to help principals understand the possibilities for their students. And I think to your point earlier, you know, a few generations ago, most people could not point to any examples of any, you know, of an adult who lived with autism and had a, you know, kind of a quote unquote normal job simply because a lot of that wasn't in place.

[15:25] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So like, I mean, I think that like what, so you mentioned like autistic people who, there's this conception that autistic people work only in like the technology field or the, you know, science and STEM fields. And that's a very common misconception. There was a study in May 2014 in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders that found that 81% of college students with autism spectrum disorders were enrolled in community college at some point after secondary school. The authors of that study also found that students who studied STEM fields were twice as likely to transfer to a four-year university than those who studied, than non-STEM students. And that's interesting to me because I went to a community college before I went to university.

[16:06]

And it's really funny because I think what it shows is that we tend to have a very limited idea of what autistic people can do. So like if you're a STEM person, like great, you know, like we know how to work that because you're like a human computer or like what Hans Asperger called little professors. The reason why we call it Asperger's is from Hans Asperger. So I think that people tend to think of, like you said, that rain man, that kind of idea of you must be good at math. You must be a superhuman or like that Sheldon Cooper kind of professorial kind of type, or you work in data analytics, but like, and I'm not taking away from people who work in those, those fields. Like if you have been able to find a place in those, those fields, God bless, like I'm for whatever, enjoy prosperity if you're autistic.

[16:51]

But at the same time, I think it also limits what autistic people can do because autistic people work in every field. You know, a perfect example is I don't work in tech. You know, I'm a journalist. I went to community college first. You know, like it was funny because I remember...

[17:07]

When I transferred to, from, when I got accepted to the honors program at my community college, Chattanooga College, I asked for, I was like, has anybody ever been, can you still get accommodations for honors students? Like, and I remember we asked, and they said, and then I remember my, they said, I don't think we've ever had anybody, any like disabled students in the honors program. And that's kind of an indictment of it as well, that we kind of have this soft bigotry of low expectations, so to speak, that... If you're disabled or you're autistic, you can't get into honors programs and you can't work in any other field besides tech.

[17:43]

But what that does is that really severely limits what we think autistic people can do, because it's almost like imagining if because I'm Mexican-American, all I can do is gardening. Or if you're Jewish-American, all you can do is work in accounting or being a doctor or a lawyer or whatever. Asian-Americans can only work in science or things like that. It's just as limiting, even if it's a complementary stereotype. And I think we need to be accepting and promote all autistic people in whatever field they do and whatever they thrive. Even, I should add, if they have intellectual disabilities and if they can't work in coding in certain sectors, they still deserve to have to be paid a full wage.

[18:21]

They still deserve to be paid with living complete dignity. They still deserve to have, you know, even if they have intellectual disabilities, they still deserve all the accommodations at work and they still deserve to be treated as human beings.

[18:32] SPEAKER_00:

I'm very interested in learning about the accommodations at the college level, because I think a lot of people don't even know that colleges offer accommodations. Like we think of, you know, we think like we need to talk tough to high school students and say in college, they're not going to help you at all. Is that OK if I ask about that?

[18:47] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So, like, I mean, I think what I think it's important to realize is that that's still your right as a college student. Like, it's not like it's not like this is a nice thing that people do. It's the law. It's like the law that they had to do it. And you're entitled to it.

[18:57]

And even though, of course, we know that the letter of the law is often different than the law in action, you're still entitled to it. And I think one of the things that I write about in the book is that when I went to community college, Oddly enough, the disability services at community colleges are great a lot of times, at least the ones that I use. Like, they were great for me. They were very accommodating. Oddly enough, I think because it's on a larger scale at universities, it's often harder to navigate. And also, I think a lot of times, because university professors and academia...

[19:28]

don't have a good understanding of disability they think that well you know if you're here then you must not be too disabled or you must not be and i should say i absorbed that like when i got to university i remember i didn't want to ask for accommodations because i thought well i'm here i'm at the university of north carolina i must not be too disabled i must have overcome my autism You know, which is ridiculous. You don't overcome autism. You live with it the rest of your life. Even people who have been severely conditioned through something like ABA and which a lot of people, autistic people don't like. They still have difficulties and they still, you know, and that's why a lot of autistic people don't like ABA. But like, no matter what, you still have autism.

[20:11]

You're still autistic and it's still inextricable from who you are. So you should still ask for that. But I think that because we almost have this, because the services that people receive have always been meager, there's almost like kind of this feeling that, well, if you're not really disabled, you shouldn't ask for these because you're really then taking away from like people who quote unquote really need it. But like, if you're a student and you need it, you need it. There's no way around it. And you deserve to have that.

[20:38]

And you deserve, and like, it's why I'm not a fan of the term special needs because I think that like it gives people it makes people think like, I get why they say it, but like, I think that to the outside observer, they think that, oh, this person's getting special treatment when really it's more like you're being put on equal footing. And this is the thing, like, it's like saying that having glasses is a special, it's a special accommodation that you're getting special treatment. No, it's like, just so you can see the dag nab, I'm trying not to curse here, you know, blackboard, you know, it's the same way, you know, like, Uh, you have to like, it's about being treated equally and fairly. And like those accommodations are there for you and I'll never forget it. So like finally, when the bottom fell through. Because I bombed a test.

[21:22]

And I realized, okay, I really need to talk to my professor about this. I went to my professor. It was right before fall break. It was literally the day fall break began. And I went to him. I said, look, I have a disability.

[21:30]

I haven't talked about it, but I really need help. And his name was David Pierron. I'll never forget. He called the disability officer, whatever they called it at my university. They're waiting for you. Go.

[21:41]

And I never took another class with him after that because it wasn't in my major. I just needed a music course or arts course credit. But I will forever love his name is Dr. David Peer. I always love him for that because he believed me. And there are a lot of professors who don't believe their students.

[21:57]

And he just got on the phone and he said, go. And the fact he did that right before fall break when he could have easily said, I'm on my way. I'm going on vacation, you know, whatever. God love him for that. But the thing is, is that like what if he wasn't that accepting, you know, and that it's that kind of all those variables having to go right. And a lot of people don't have that.

[22:15]

You know, I was talking with a young man by the name of Charlie Garcia Spiegel. And he was saying that like when he asked his professor for accommodations, like they said, well, you know, he really kind of turned him down and he said, well, you must not belong here because you need accommodations. So like that's a reality that a lot of people face.

[22:32] SPEAKER_00:

I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what some of the successful accommodations were, because like it's easy to picture. Like I remember taking a college class one time with a believe deaf student who had someone transcribe everything. So like there are certain things that like we kind of can envision pretty easily what that would look like. What is that? What did that look like for you?

[22:49] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So like, I mean, I think for me, it was like when I was a community college, I would take tests in a separate room and I would get like extra time, you know, like that was just because I could be there wasn't any interfering noises because like that could be sensory overload when I'm even like the rustling of papers could be too much for me. And even the fact that I'm wearing headphones, as you can see here right now, just like I have to wear headphones when I'm working. Otherwise, like any noise, even my upstairs neighbor, even the sound of a fan or air conditioner could be bad. And then, like I said, extra time and then just meeting with one and then like going to my counselor once a week and mapping out my week was also a really important thing. So it's really like you'd be surprised how small some of these accommodations are, but how much of a difference they can make.

[23:30]

It's almost like they're an infinitesimal amount of work, but they have an infinite amount of time. Yeah.

[23:36] SPEAKER_00:

And just knowing that they're available, like you said, the professor who picked up the phone for you and said, look, there are people who are happy to help. And, you know, connecting you with that resource sounds like it made all the difference.

[23:47] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that happened. Once again, it was all coincidence. When I was a student, when I was finally in my major in journalism, again, I had trouble. I was writing, I was taking a class about Southern politics and how to write columns, how to write opinion columns in journalism school. And my professor, Gavin, who I adored, Just like the epitome of a Southern gentleman, down to like the suspenders and the crisp shirts and the glasses and all that. Like he had this very thick accent from Louisiana.

[24:12]

Like after one of my classes, after I turned on one of my first assignments, before class, he brought me into his office. He closed the door and he's like, do you have Asperger's? And that was what they called it at the time. And I was like, on one end, I was like, what gives you the right to ask that? But on the other end, he was like, I was like, my immediate response was, how'd you know? And he was like, he mentioned he had a loved one who was on the spectrum, he had family members.

[24:37]

And then he said, look, I'm going to help you. Like, come meet me in my office and then we can do this and we can talk about it. And I never thought of going to office hours like with him because I just, I thought that if I went to ask him for help, that I wouldn't be, that I wasn't smart or that I was asking for extra help. But like, no, that was why he was here and there. And we know from studies showing that low-income students don't like using office hours for professors because they don't want to ask for help. Also, the fact that I could talk so freely about my disability with him, he helped me kind of whittle down my columns and whittle down and sharpen my ideas.

[25:10]

And once that happened, it was like night and day. I was able to like I got an A on my next exam. I got an A minus in the class, you know, all together. But it was like all it took was that one thing. So you'd be surprised. Once again, how small it is, but just all it takes is acceptance.

[25:27]

But like the other thing is that like it shouldn't, there should be safeguards and that there should be kind of this universal, these kind of universal accommodations for anybody. So even if you have a bad professor, you still have accommodations. Like it shouldn't take like the randomness of the random acts of one particularly good person. Because even I should say that's too much of an order thing. For even good professors or even good teachers, because even good teachers, you can be the greatest teacher in the world, but if you don't have the systems supporting you, then you can't fix it. You can't actually make it a better experience, the best experience possible.

[26:03]

So it really needs to happen on a systemic level.

[26:05] SPEAKER_00:

And I should say, we've only scratched the surface of the book. You talk about not only education, but work and housing and healthcare and relationships and so much more in the book. But thank you for sharing some perspective on your higher education experience, because I think that's so important for us to understand at the K-12 level, like what is possible for students, what supports are available for students, and what we need to help students advocate for when they reach that next level.

[26:31] SPEAKER_01:

And on top of that, I think there was a GAO study, like, I think two years ago, two, three years ago, for those who don't know, for people who aren't nerds like me, Government Accountability Office, you know, it showed that, like, you need to start transitioning services for autistic students, like, earlier. So, like, I mean, starting it at, like, you know, I think right now it's, like, 16, but, like, I'm forgetting the exact numbers. They said, like, it usually starts at 16 or 17, but it needs to start at, like, 14, like, Getting in early is crucial. I would say it's like two things. You need to start early and you also need to assure, you need to assume that whatever autistic people want and they can set their minds to, they can do and lay a groundwork for that. So that even if they don't necessarily succeed, they've laid the groundwork so that they can do something else.

[27:16]

Assume that they can and they should live a happy life and their expectations aren't limited. It's why I'm not a fan of the term low functioning. Because, and I promise we'll end up with this, but like seeing someone as low functioning often erases, yes, they do have disability and yes, they do have high support needs. And that's why I support the term, I prefer the term high support needs. Like, yes, they may have higher support needs, but like to see that they're low functioning automatically limits them. And then in the same way, saying that someone's high functioning often erases the really legitimate challenges and the really legitimate needs that they have and prevents us from really knowing what kind of accommodations they need because we're like, oh, they're high functioning.

[27:55]

They must not need too much. it needs to start early and you need to assume a, you know, and then like that, like there's that one part and then there's like a two pronged second part, which is assume the best for students regardless, and also be ready to assist with any accommodations otherwise that are needed. So like, That's a really, really complicated answer, but I hope that that made sense. Absolutely.

[28:18] SPEAKER_00:

So the book is We're Not Broken, Changing the Autism Conversation. Eric Garcia, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio. It's been a pleasure.

[28:25] SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much. Yeah, and I just want to say that autistic people are fine as is, and we should try to change them. We should try to help them with their lives.

[28:32] Announcer:

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