Presented by Jeremy K. Farrell

Monday, November 13
6:30-7:30 pm

Registration is required. You can register on the Pawling Library’s online calendar or contact Donald, our Adult Program Coordinator, at adult@pawlinglibrary.org. You can also register by calling our library at 845-855-3444. Thank you.

Autistic individuals often have undeniable specific strengths but difficulty with many of the skills necessary to navigate our world. This is because many of these skills are not nearly as simple as they look and are more accurately viewed as skill sets. Social skills and life skills include dozens of different skills that simply seek a common goal. Because of multiple factors that will be discussed, it’s common for autistic individuals to not fully develop these entire skill sets, even if they are proficient at some of the skills involved. This lack of fully developed skill sets leads to massive blind spots that autistic individuals like myself, as well as other professionals and educators, are far too familiar with. This can significantly hamper autistic individuals’ abilities to navigate these parts of the world.

Jeremy Farrell’s presentation will explore the underdeveloped skill sets typical of autism and discuss ways to build these skills towards success within a neurotypical society.

About our presenter: Jeremy K. Farrell is a passionate Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Advocate and a proud person on the spectrum himself. He has been working with children with developmental disabilities, specializing in autism, since the age of 15. Since graduating from Southern Connecticut State University, he has run social skills groups for teens and kids on the spectrum out of Western Connecticut Behavioral Health and worked with autism focused organizations to provide recreational resources to their clients. He also spent time working as a University Assistant for Southern Connecticut State University where he traveled the state of Connecticut as the Leader of Community Outreach and Recruitment for the Listening to Faces Speech and Language Autism research out of Yale’s Child Study Center. While traveling the state he exhibited at events and spoke to parent groups about the research and its importance to the autistic community. He also consulted with businesses and organizations to help them understand autism and their autistic clients as part of his work as the Director of Family and Personal Growth for Planning Across the Spectrum. Recently he has worked as a Certified Job Coach for the Connecticut Autism Waiver helping autistic adults build their own businesses and advocated for the autistic community through offering webinars and presentations built on what he’s learned through his personal and professional life. He recently had the opportunity to also work as a facilitator for the Tony Richards Leadership Academy Autism focused leadership training program.