RSVP Screening at Pace

Thanks go out to GRASP's Ben Fox and New York City Department of Education's Shelly Klainberg for their help in organizing this week's screening at Pace University for the students and teachers of the RSVP program.

In its third year, the program was developed by New York City Department of Education Special Education District 75 and GRASP to teach social and vocational skills to students with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders). With the addition of few GRASP members, we had a lively screening and discussion, with talk about relationships, making friends, and an ASD diagnosis.

As Ralph, one of the students in the program, explained: Asperger's is just a bump in the road. It's there to slow you down, not stop you. It doesn't mean that you cannot cross the road, just that you have to maneuver around it. Karin, a mother of a teen diagnosed with Asperger's, quoted Patty Duke to describe Asperger's as a explanation, not an excuse.

After the screening, Juan, a GRASP community member only recently diagnosed, sent in this high school photo:


He writes, "This may or may not be something; it’s a photo of me my senior year in high school (’91). I’m in the extreme right. Remind you of anybody? (Body pose; sunglasses, even the hairstyle)."

Well we definitely see it!!

Thanks to everyone who came out!