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