For All Abilities Betsy Furler

In this episode, I interview Allie Mason. We discuss the challenge of her diagnosis of autism while she was working on a graduate degree. We also talk about how she has navigated school and work with the diagnosis. To connect with Allie,  please follow her on LinkedIn (Allie Mason), on Instagram at whensouthmetnorth and on Facebook at Where Allie Writes.  

I am talking in this episode with Anvita Jain about her journey with generalized anxiety and how she navigates the workplace as a human resources professional.   Thanks for listening to For All Abilities today! Share the podcast with your friends, they’ll thank you for it!
 
 

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In this episode, I interview Tim Irr, Anchor at WSAZ-TV in West Virginia. We discuss the challenges of his ADHD. Tim talks about his childhood and the challenges he faced in the classroom. He discusses how he ended up in television news and how it is the perfect fit for his strengths.

 

Read more about Tim here.

 

To connect with Tim, please follow him on LinkedIn, email him at tim.irr@wsaz.com, or connect on Twitter.
 


 
Thanks for listening to For All Abilities today! Share the podcast with your friends, they’ll thank you for it!
 

Follow Betsy on Social Media

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BetsyFurler

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forallabilities

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forallabilities

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/betsy-furler

Join our newsletter or find out more about our software and services for employers: http://www.forallabilities.com

For this episode, we interviewed Cassidy Hooper about living with Turner Syndrome. 


Betsy Furler 0:05 Welcome to for all abilities, the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. The aim of this podcast is to highlight the amazing things people with ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences and autism are doing to improve our world. Have a listen to for all abilities, the podcast, and please subscribe on whatever podcast app you're listening to us on. Welcome back to for all abilities, the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. And I'm back here today to talk to yet another amazing person with Nord neurodiversity, and he's going to talk about her life and how she's using her skills as a person with autism to make a difference in this world. So well show Cassidy Hooper, how are you? Cassidy Hooper 1:00 I'm good. How are you better see the sunrise, your podcast? Yes. So Betsy Furler 1:05 I'm so excited to have you. So why don't you introduce yourself real quick to our audience? Cassidy Hooper 1:11 Yes, of course. So I'm Cassidy Hooper. First, I'm from North East Mississippi. And I was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition called Turner Syndrome. When I was nine days old, and at around 17 years old, I was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, a form of autism. And as far as neuro, neuro diversity, and what I do for the autism community is I do some advocacy work for the art of North East Mississippi. I am the community navigator for the autism now division within the ark. And um, yeah, so that's a little bit about me. Betsy Furler 1:57 So what were you like as a little girl? What do you remember about your childhood? I guess, you your diagnosis you knew of when you were little was Turner Syndrome? Cassidy Hooper 2:07 Yes. Um, well, as a child, I was always really sick. Um, but I was in the hospital for a while. But, um, I didn't walk until I was around like 19 months. And so yeah, that's, that's pretty much all I know, for my childhood. Um, I was pretty much sick. Throughout. Betsy Furler 2:38 What about school? Did you enjoy going to school? Cassidy Hooper 2:41 Yeah, um, for me, it was hard to always stay to myself most of the time. I didn't really connect with the other, my peers, um, with other kids? Very much. I just stayed to myself most of the time, but I think I've gotten better socially, as I've gotten older. Um, so yeah. Betsy Furler 3:08 What about in high school did you do in? Were you in special ed classes? Or were you in general ed classes? Cassidy Hooper 3:14 general ed? Oh, good. Okay. Good. Betsy Furler 3:17 And in high school, did you do band or any extracurricular activities? Or did you pretty much just stay with the academic classes? Cassidy Hooper 3:26 I stayed with the academic classes pretty much my entire high school career. Betsy Furler 3:33 Did you what kind of grades did you make? Did you do okay, or was it hard for you? Cassidy Hooper 3:38 Yeah, I did pretty good. Um, I was actually, when I graduated high school. I was for highest ranking in my class with honors when I graduated high school, so Unknown Speaker 3:52 I, yeah, he got really well. Cassidy Hooper 3:55 Yeah. So that's cool. Yeah. What Unknown Speaker 3:59 did you do after high school? Cassidy Hooper 4:02 Well, I went to a local community college, but it didn't work out. So I'm now currently not going to college anymore. So yeah, it didn't work out. Because no, I had to take a math elective. And that's my worst subject. I had visual spatial awareness issues. So math was really a struggle for me. And I had to take college algebra. So yeah, yeah. So it was difficult. So that college wasn't for me. So I was drew and but yeah, Betsy Furler 4:46 yeah, college is not for everybody, right, and doesn't necessarily even give us the skills we need. So what have How did you have you had any other jobs besides the job at the arc that you're currently doing? Cassidy Hooper 5:00

On this episode, we interview David Sharif about working with  autism. 


 
Betsy Furler 0:05 Welcome to for all abilities, the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. The aim of this podcast is to highlight the amazing things people with ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences and autism are doing to improve our world. Have a listen to for all abilities, the podcast, and please subscribe on whatever podcast app you're listening to us on. Welcome back to for all abilities, the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. And I'm so excited to be here again today talking to all of you, and another special guest. I'll introduce him in a minute. But I hope you all join us for an interesting conversation on autism, neuro diversity, and why we all need to value the differences of others as well as our own differences. So today, we have David Sheree with us and I probably mispronounced his name, but he's gonna tell us in a minute, he has autism and is a Autism Awareness advocate. And I'm really excited to hear about David's life story, and how autism has affected his life. So welcome, David. David Sharif 1:19 Thank you for having me. Oh, and before anything, you perfectly pronounced my last name, so don't worry. Betsy Furler 1:26 Oh, it's a miracle. Unknown Speaker 1:27 Yeah. Betsy Furler 1:29 So why don't you just introduce yourself to my audience? David Sharif 1:33 Sure. So my name is David Sharif. I am a magnet come loud, a graduate of Pace University with a Bachelor of Arts in political science and Peace and Justice Studies. And I currently live in Ridgewood, New York. Betsy Furler 1:47 Awesome. So usually we start the show by talking a little bit about what you were like as a little boy, and your diagnosis everywhere you remember it? I think I read you were diagnosed as around the age of four. Yeah, so you may or may not remember that. But anyway, tell us tell us your own words to tell us about that. David Sharif 2:07 So yeah, I actually do remember my diagnosis. And I kind of noticed my behavioral challenges during my world travels, because I grew up in a family, where global citizenship and traveling the world is a huge passion. So what happened was my family and I were flying back to the United States from Pakistan, at the airport, and Islam about a security guard wanted to look into my suitcase. And I lashed out when that happened, but then my parents had to help me. And then they were able to tell the security, check the security guards that he that he is different. And then so that situation was handled. And then by the time we got back to Los Angeles, I was taken to the pediatrics to be evaluated. I had my early therapy sessions. And I was also a part of a youth group, where I really, really explored, I'd been where I explored the arts in various ways, before I got enrolled into a school that provides different supports for kids with learning differences from pre preschool, kindergarten to high school. Betsy Furler 3:32 Awesome, and you obviously are a smart person. Because you graduated from college, and with honors and you did it in four years, correct? I did, which is not necessarily like, you know, people don't have to do that. But it is an accomplishment in like now it's definitely an accomplishment. So congratulations on that. David Sharif 3:53 Thank you. Betsy Furler 3:54 So what was what were you? What were your academic? and academics like early on? So like in elementary school? Did you struggle in school? Or did you always do pretty well? David Sharif 4:06 So back in elementary school on the workload wasn't that tedious. Um, so during elementary school, we had something called spelling tests, they were a combination of short words, long words. And the spelling tests didn't matter about the words that we got, right? It's really about learning how we spell them how we learn from mistakes. And, and even before I got into upper elementary school, we had separate r