At graduation this year the only person Maria S will be looking for is her brother, Scott. Maria’s brother is sixteen years old and is autistic. Despite Scott’s difficulties with communication, Maria and her brother are very close. Maria says that Scott is extremely smart, “When I look at him I can see the gears moving but he can’t get [the words] out.” This is a typical struggle for children with autism. Autistic kids often have trouble with social settings, communicating, and cognitive processing. Here on the Spectrum, there are some professionals that have had consistent training and experience in delivering telehealth services for you and your child and they’re also providing parent training, safety planning, and general consultation.

Despite Scott’s cognitive difficulties, Maria and Scott have an average brother-sister relationship. “We still fight,” Maria says, but when talking about how her brother, at only age sixteen, is as big as a man she smiles and says, “He doesn’t understand that when he hugs me and squeezes I can’t breathe.” Like any average brother and sister they go from fighting one day to hugging the next. “Our relationship is so different, it’s on another level,” Maria says. She talked about how all of the obstacles that they overcome together including autism have brought them extremely close but she says, “It’s hard that he can’t do things that other people do with their brothers.”

Despite any complications Scott may have, Maria strives to be the best sister she can be. She says that the most important things about being a good big sister are “always putting him first, taking care of him, protecting him, and being his friend.” At Newark High School, Scott doesn’t have many good friends and Maria says that sometimes when they are out of the comfort of their home she notices people staring or pointing at Scott. It can be hard for her but Scott remains blissfully unaware of the stares and she will always protect him from them.

Maria says that after graduation she plans on studying biology at the University of Delaware and becoming a neurologist.  She hopes to one day open a school only for autistic children. She hopes to have a school for autistic kids where they can feel the same community we enjoy at Padua.