When you’re born into a family in which your grandfather and father are doctors and your mother is a nurse, it’s a good bet that playing doctor may lie in your future. Yet, once John Rhodes was placed into special education classes in elementary school the possibility that he would follow their footsteps into medicine seemed longshot at best, and the writing was on the wall. Only he struggled mightily to read it.
When doctors told the parents of Armani Williams that he had autism and might need to be a ward of his parents for life, the dreams they had for their son seemed stuck in park. But the boy who was fascinated with cars and trucks took a detour and put his own dream on overdrive. He started racing go-karts as an 8-year-old and debuted in the NASCAR Pinty’s Series in Canada in 2017.
On this episode of “A World of Difference: Embracing Neurodiversity” meet Ness Blackbird, our latest “Difference Maker.” He is the neurodivergent mind behind a coding education platform designed to help school districts equip students with the computer programming skills necessary to enter the workforce or to succeed in college.
Jeremiah Josey’s passion for pastry led him to launch a YouTube program, “Jeremiah’s Cooking Adventures,” where he cooked with famous chefs. But things really heated up for this easy baker after a guest spot on the Steve Harvey Show. These days, when Josey isn’t baking with his culinary heroes or modeling for Tommy Hilfiger, he’s penning books about his journey with autism and standing up tall as an advocate for the neurodiverse.
Though not impossible, it’s pretty tough to find young boys who aren’t fascinated by dinosaurs. And it’s about as difficult to find young boys who don’t like digging in the dirt. Indeed, as a boy, John “Jack” Horner plunged his tools into the soil and found his first dinosaur bone at age 8. As adult, Read More…
Public relations has gotten a bad rap of being known as the art of spin. Yet, although she’d found her niche in PR — and was really good at it — Nik Govier could never spin her doubts about her intellectual capabilities into a winning narrative. She struggles to spell or write by hand and Read More…
David Flink was determined no other neurodivergent kids should have to endure the stigma of learning disability, leading him to found Eye to Eye, a nationwide nonprofit created by and for people who learn differently, with the goal of promoting a more equitable and inclusive world for people with learning differences.
Imagine you’ve enjoyed a successful career in TV journalism anchoring newscasts, hosting a popular show on HGTV, and working for ESPN, but you’ve grown weary of the gloom and doom of the daily news blotter.
What do you do?
Jump onto YouTube and create your own reality of parody songs, zaniness and good cheer. Or at least that’s what Penn Holderness did, making it a family affair with his wife and kids, sharing their abundant love and a good time with the world.
After her family had fled Cuba and Castro’s tyranny in the 1960s, Carmen Agra Deedy landed in a small Georgia town. There she ran headlong into the tyranny of the written word and numbers. For years, she believed she was dumb. Later, as an adult, she discovered two things: First, she wasn’t dumb at all; Read More…
If you looked up the phrase “force of nature” in the dictionary it wouldn’t be surprising to find a referral entry that reads: See Tova Sherman. Growing up in a family where disability was familiar, Sherman struggled in school and with her path until she learned to harness her ADHD and channel it into a career fighting for diversity and inclusion providing a voice for the voiceless in Canada.
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