1000 Points

how are you all doing tonight

excellent thank you thank you

[Applause]

a few years ago we had a small incident

at my house

a group of friends were over and we were

messing with

this stuffed shark

as the very mature 13 year olds we were

we decided it was a grand idea to

repeatedly cave the shark’s face in

on itself and then wear it as a hat

then this is not i’ll tell you who carl

is carl

is a friend and this is not carl this is

jake who’s here tonight thank you jake

carl made a comment about the shark he

said something along the lines of

the sharks

but as batman appears when the bat

signal shines my mother teleported into

the room

and lectured us about why we don’t use

this

offensive language granting me the gift

of

embarrassment however

i knew she was right this dumb shark

story

was my epiphany moment my light bulb

this

was the birthplace of my 1 000 points

analogy but more on that later

none of this makes sense if you don’t

know my story

i was born on november 9 2003

and lived in ronkonkoma long island for

the first few years of my childhood

i went to a library social group with

other kids my age

and i was typically developing hitting

my milestones

however i was excruciatingly shy

which is ironic that i’m now standing

before all of you

talking about a silly stuffed shark

the biggest difference between me and

the other kids in my group

was that they all had siblings so my

parents fired up the factory one last

time

and nine months later eric was born

a few years went by and they started to

notice

abnormal behavior he didn’t keep eye

contact very well and his speech wasn’t

coming along as

quickly as mine had so they took him to

a doctor

and on january 20 2009 my brother was

diagnosed with autism

i of course didn’t really understand

this

for a few more years but my brother was

now diagnosed to be different

to grow up with challenges far greater

than the ordinary boy would ever face

and yet a unique persona that was all

his own

his own point combination but again

more on the points later after working

with an excellent team of therapists

in early intervention and attending a

special preschool

eric landed himself a spot in a small

class here in goshen’s elementary school

after eric’s kindergarten introduction

the orzo family has been very active in

the autism community

here in orange county my mother joined a

group of dedicated parents with an

organization called a mock

the autism moveathon of orange county

this group of parents host community

events

raise awareness and fundraise in order

to give families affected by

autism in the area annual grants i’ve

been a volunteer since i was six

this group of parents went on to create

the thunderbolts new york certified

special olympic

oh come on special olympic basketball

swimming

bowling track and field and

weightlifting teams

over the past eight years we’ve trained

over 150 athletes of all abilities

and our teams are unified this means

that players and coaches such as myself

can compete together i coach on the

basketball court

and on the pool deck this is my pride

and joy

when i do compete i can implement

strategy and

the athletes apply their skills which i

have

absolutely none of but

together we combine strengths and

succeed

to see them overcome adversity to win

that gold medal

or have fun and defeat it is euphoric

to see their hard work paying off their

dedication

but most importantly their support to

each other

now there have been a plethora of

challenges that we have faced as a

family

eric’s first challenge for us was his

three-page long list

of food allergies now i know you can’t

read that very well

but imagine being able to eat

approximately

nothing unfortunately

these allergies have not gone away with

age as they do for some people

so we are still constantly cleaning

constantly cooking

constantly reading food labels

fortunately for eric

potatoes are not amongst these food

allergies and they become a large

portion

of his diet of course the greatest

challenges came

with his diagnosis the speech barrier

the behavioral outbreaks

the slower development all of these

weaknesses

are still being worked on to this day

but they’ve made us as a family

stronger patience

compassion leadership these are all

traits

i’ve gained working with eric over the

years

doing math homework to this day is still

a tremendous struggle

because he is convinced to be fair as

was i

that the teacher is wrong in his case me

in my case mr joyce

and that he’s right but with

repetition and patience we succeed

so 1000 points

what does it mean well this is just an

analogy that i came up with

a few years ago and it’s my way of

looking at how

people’s brains work so let’s say we all

have

a point system when we’re born each of

us

have a bank of 1000 points that are

spread out

into different categories that make us

who we

are for a typical person the points are

spread out fairly evenly

for example they might have 40 points in

history

45 points in math and maybe 70 points in

sports

the typical person is pretty good at

everything jack of all trades master of

none

the difference with a person with autism

is that their point distribution

is more extreme so they might have

maybe 130 points in memory and only

10 in speech for example eric’s been

able to say the alphabet backwards since

he was only

three can anyone else here do that

i know if i tried i’d get to around x

and

numbers and emojis would start coming

out of my mouth

we all have the same 1000 points

they’re just spread out differently it’s

what made eric and i’s bond

so strong it’s his shortcomings in math

that i fill with my strengths and it was

my shortcomings and being humorous he’s

brought out

me we all have the same 1000 points

and yet we still judge people for their

differences in points

people of all skin colors or mental

disabilities are physical

handicaps these are all just effects

of different point combinations we all

have the same 1 000 points

we are all human just constructed

differently

in order to fill our own unique roles in

life

our own niches when

we can learn to combine these points

combine strengths and fill in the gaps

where there are deficits

we can do extraordinary things

thank you eric you’re the best teammate

i could ever ask for

you