Week 8: ACEing Autism
Adhip J -
Hello all, and welcome to week 8!!
It’s crazy that this wonderful journey is slowly reaching its destination, and I am so excited to tell you all about what we will be talking about in the next few weeks.
I do apologize, as I am writing to you from a fairly boring office desk instead of our usual exciting coffee shop destinations, but I am sure what I have to say will be more than exciting enough!!
To understand what our lab and I want to pursue as next steps, you should hear a story from early December. While I was tirelessly working on my college applications (at Crave, of course), a friend of mine told me about a program called ACEing Autism. Sounds quite interesting, right? Well, I explored the program and found that it intersects two of my biggest passions: athletics and community outreach. The program has multiple branches across the nation and uses local tennis teaching professionals and volunteers to involve local children with ASD in tennis.
When I began my research for the lab in February, the idea of bridging this program with the lab’s efforts entered my head, but I remained hesitant because I was unsure how interested my mentor and the university in general would be in this program. A few days ago, I shared this idea with my mentor, and she loved it!
In our latest meeting, we discussed how to move forward so that we may bring this amazing program to our city! While it previously existed at the Jewish Community Center (JCC), it seems to have lost a program leader, meaning that Tucson is in dire need of an educational and athletic resource that involves the autistic community. My next few weeks will focus on coming up with a plan on establishing this program at the university, which involves discussing it with a larger program director, building an outline for necessary equipment and volunteer resources, and eventually, reaching out to people in our community to come volunteer and also parents to include their children in this beautiful program!
While the process of establishing the program will reach beyond my project (most likely into late fall), I am confident that I can continue my involvement with the lab beyond this time so I can see these efforts come to fruition. I also see this project expanding beyond tennis and believe that we could potentially involve UA Athletics by creating an initiative to include autistic individuals in various sports.
I have also started thinking of my final product and discussed with my mentor what we believe would be a creative display of the diverse work that I have conducted over my time with the project. To maintain an element of surprise, I won’t share too many details, but I am greatly excited at the opportunity of providing educational resources to the public in an accessible and streamlined manner.
I hope y’all are as excited as I am for these new developments, and I’ll see you next week with more updates!!
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