In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the employment of adults with autism and other developmental disabilities. Many posts have discussed programs to provide them with training and experience.
You can hear Hari Srinivasan’s confident voice in his academic research papers, his Daily Californian newspaper articles and in his poetry and essays. But in person, you’re not likely to hear him speak.
That’s because the UC Berkeley psychology major’s ability to vocalize is severely limited due to regressive autism and a neurological disorder known as oral-motor apraxia.
It closed many doors to him. But not at Berkeley, and certainly not now.
Srinivasan is the first nonspeaking person, or as he puts it, “minimally speaking autistic” to win a prestigious Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. He will receive $90,000 to fund his Ph.D. studies in neuroscience at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.
Along with Dave Epstein, a Ph.D. student in computer science at UC Berkeley, Srinivasan is among 30 erudite U.S. undergraduate and graduate students selected this year for the 1998-founded fellowship. The honor recognizes immigrants and children of immigrants “who are poised to make significant contributions to U.S. society, culture or their academic field.”...As a Haas Scholar, Srinivasan has conducted research on emotions, among other scholarly pursuits, and will graduate Phi Beta Kappa and Psi Chi. Beyond the campus, he has served on the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee of the National Institutes of Health, which advises federal policy around autism, and on the boards of several national advocacy nonprofits.
