Friendships are Very Important
When I was about four-and-a-half years old, a doctor diagnosed me with autism and said a lot of "nevers" about me including the fact that I would never have any friends, but most of those "nevers" turned out not to true. My parents figured out that keeping me involved with normal peers my age would help me "learn how to be a kid". They called it my "circle of friends." They figured out that creating a club of mainstream kids who knew about autism would really help me make friends despite my autism. This structured friendship program helped me throughout school because when I hung out with other kids my age, it helped me learn how to act more like a person my age would act.
Friendships are an important part of my life. When I was young, they helped defeat the "isolation" that is part of autism. Today, they’re just a natural thing for me.
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