Page 21 - Outlook

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ERIE (AP) — Nick
Pusateri drapes himself
across a couch in a bunker-
like room in the basement of
his apartment building at
Mercyhurst University in
Erie.
His arms, legs and shoul-
ders bend around one anoth-
er as if hinged on extra
joints. His neatly cropped,
reddish-brown hair lies for-
ward, toward his square-
rimmed glasses. Pusateri, 22,
stares into the Greek mythol-
ogy book, his face impassive,
and his voracious mind be-
gins to feast.
When he was 2, doctors
diagnosed Pusateri of
Sewickley with autism, a
spectrum of disorders char-
acterized by social impair-
ment and communication
problems. He’s not intellectu-
ally impaired; his professors
say he’s among their bright-
est students. He just lacks an
intuitive understanding of the
unconscious gestures, invisi-
ble boundaries and tiny sig-
nals that weave into our so-
cial fabric.
But he’s learning.
Schools such as Mercy-
hurst are developing pro-
grams to prepare an explod-
ing population of autistic
students such as Pusateri to
enter the work force and
contribute their sometimes
astonishing intellectual abili-
ties.
“We’ve never seen some-
thing that he wanted to mas-
ter that he couldn’t,” said
Pusateri’s mother, Dr.
Dorothy Pusateri, an in-
ternist.
Nick Pusateri memorized
the code on his library card
at 13, once drew a detailed
map of Sewickley — includ-
ing architectural and histori-
cal highlights — from mem-
ory, taught himself the
history of the Mormon
church and scored higher
than 600 on the math section
of his SAT college entrance
exam without ever taking an
algebra class. The average
score for male students in
2008 was 533.
“He intuitively figured out
the answers” as he worked
his way through the test,
said Dianne Rogers, director
of Mercyhurst’s Learning
Differences program.
The Asperger Initiative at
Mercyhurst — Asperger’s
syndrome is a high-function
disorder on the autism spec-
trum — began in 2008, and
is among the country’s most
comprehensive.
Young
Pusateri, a senior majoring in
history and anthropology,
has a 3.48 grade-point aver-
age and is on track to be-
come one of its first gradu-
ates this year.
Pusateri chose history, he
said, because he’s “pretty
much interested in every
subject imaginable,” and his-
tory seemed to cover the
broadest range.
He speaks with a uniform
cadence and inflection, re-
gardless of the subject, and
when he stands still, it’s usu-
ally turned to the side, his
spine and legs relaxed into
an “S” shape.
When Mercyhurst faculty
began planning the program
about seven years ago,
“there was really no model.
We had to ... create one,”
Rogers said.
“We didn’t want it to be
like a clinic. We wanted it to
be a real college experience,”
she said.
Some students in the pro-
gram are hypersensitive to
sound, touch, lights, taste.
Loud noises can feel like a
dentist’s drill nicking a nerve.
The thought of social in-
teraction can paralyze them.
Some students pace in front
of a professor’s door for an
hour, repeatedly rehearsing
a simple conversation. Two
roommates at Mercyhurst
spent two months living to-
gether without saying a word
to each other inside their
apartment.
Pusateri avoided the per-
sonal connections other peo-
ple forge in college. He does-
n’t make close friends and
isn’t romantically involved.
He said he probably won’t
keep in touch with anyone
after he leaves Mercyhurst.
That’s just how he is, he
said.
“You get over the fact that
your kid doesn’t have
friends, because you realize
he’s just very happy the way
he is. It’s been a gift that
he’s content,” Dorothy
Pusateri said.
Mercyhurst’s program be-
gins with a summer course
called Foundations, where
high school students, usually
in the summer after their
junior year, take college
courses and live on campus.
By the program’s fourth
summer, word spread, and
the response was over-
whelming.
“With a $400 advertising
budget ... we had 200 in-
quiries,” but only enough
funding for 25 slots, Rogers
said. In the years since, ad-
ministrators have dialed back
the supervision after finding
the students were more ca-
pable — and wanted more
independence — than they
initially thought.
The number of adults di-
agnosed with autism in
Pennsylvania is expected to
rise from fewer than 4,000 in
2010 to nearly 20,000 by
2020, according to a state
study released in 2009.
That’s attributed to a rapid
increase in the number of di-
agnoses, beginning about 20
years ago, thanks to a
greater understanding of
autism.
The first wave of that pop-
ulation is reaching adult-
hood. The number of autistic
students registered with the
University of Pittsburgh’s Of-
fice of Disability Resources
and Services rose from one
or two five years ago to
about 50 now, said director
Lynette Van Slyke.
If they don’t learn social
skills, most people with
autism flounder, according to
a study the state Department
of Public Welfare released
Thursday. It found more
than two-thirds of adults with
autism are unemployed, and
just 6 percent are employed
full time.
Because of their lost pro-
ductivity and the cost of
adult care, the lifetime “soci-
etal cost” of a person with
autism is $3.2 million, ac-
cording to a 2007 study in
the Archives of Pediatrics
and Adolescent Medicine.
Dorothy Pusateri argues
it’s much cheaper provide so-
cial education for people with
autism.
Because of how his mind
works, her son “is incapable
of being manipulative or de-
ceitful. He doesn’t aspire to
take away your job, my job
or anybody else’s job,” she
said. “Make him a tax-paying
member of society rather
than someone who’s depend-
ent on someone else for the
rest of their life.”
Programs that utilize an
autistic person’s academic
prowess can allow them to
blossom. In such settings,
their abilities define them
rather than their autism, and
that allows them to interact
with peers with less fear of
being ostracized, Mercy-
hurst’s Rogers said.
“When they’re in high
school, they’re bullied,
picked on. When they have
the opportunity to shine in-
tellectually, it does translate
into social skills,” Rogers
said.
In Nick Pusateri’s classes,
professors say he draws on
his voluminous reading and
connects events and facts in
ways that sometimes send
his teachers back to the
books once class is over. He
rarely hesitates to answer a
question because he harbors
no fear of how he’ll sound to
his peers, said Chris Magoc,
chairman of the history de-
partment.
Mercyhurst’s program,
which costs about $4,000 a
year above tuition, includes
social tutoring and the option
of not having a roommate,
but pushes students toward
self-sufficiency. Students,
with varying levels of moni-
toring, become responsible
for their own food and med-
ication — often for the first
time — and must adhere to
the same code of conduct as
every other student.
Pusateri spent an uncom-
fortable seven weeks living
in a tent in the New Mexico
desert on an archaeology dig
— something his parents
could scarcely imagine was
possible a few years ago.
The experience helped him
settle on library sciences as a
career, and he has been ac-
cepted into every graduate
program to which he’s ap-
plied, including Drexel Uni-
versity and Indiana Universi-
ty, in Bloomington, Ind., his
top choices.
It’s a fitting pursuit, his
mother said. Nick Pusateri
made weekly trips to the lo-
cal library when he was
growing up and stayed in the
campus library so late so of-
ten during his first two years
at Mercyhurst that library
staff often checked the build-
ing for him before locking
up at night.
“He lives with two other
guys on the spectrum. He
does his own cooking, his
own laundry, his own shop-
ping,” Dorothy Pusateri said.
“If you’d have said, when he
was a freshman or sopho-
more in high school, ‘Can he
do that?’ I would’ve said,
‘Nope. That’s
realm of possibi
Nick Pusateri
mentor this su
cyhurst’s Foun
gram — the sa
tended as a
student. He wo
newcomers th
outbursts, awk
uncertainty.
“It was kind
flection. I saw
said.
Pusateri’s
Dorothy and
pride in their so
ence, but the ol
turn. Graduate
quire more of
take him farthe
But for the fi
young man’s pa
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“I care more
ture than wh
out,” Nick Pusa
He struggles
that happened.
“It’s really
scribe as a basi
route of progres
difficult to put
spective,” he sai
Dorothy Pus
trates on what’s
“Your heart
throat.” She h
best, and listen
telling her: “Jus
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University opens doors for autistic stude