Public Speaking

Posted on June 13, 2024

As a well know Autism Self-Advocate in Pennsylvania, you do have to learn how to become a well-spoken person and to be able to relate to the public. In the past many years, I have learned how to become a public speaker. Over the last fifteen years I have honed my skills by introducing our guest speakers at our adult autism support group meetings. Each month I would have different guest speakers who I would have to introduce to our group members and what the special guest speaker does for the autism community. Before I would introduce the guest speaker, I would often have to get out in front of our group members and talk about upcoming events that our group members would be involved with such as monthly trips to different places. This can be very intimidating for anyone; it is called stage fright. Luckily, I had good training in public speaking early in life. In grade school I would be involved with plays or singing songs in front of our parents or in class when you would have to give book reports.

I think my real training in public speaking came in high school when I joined our high school drama club where I did two plays when you had to memorize a script for a play. These things would help me to do many of the things I do today. Many of these things included being a volunteer at the two museums I volunteer at because they both require me to talk the public which can be very hard for many individuals. The many things I did from elementary school through my college years help prepare me for these things. After college my first real test was probably giving a speech at a Greater Harrisburg area Day of Inspiration speech after the main speaker ended his presentation. I know I was very nervous, but I did it and I had heard people were in tears during my speech which dealt with my life up to that day. My second big speech was when I received my very first advocacy award, it was the Dennis O’Brien Autism Advocacy award in 2017 at the Philadelphia School district building. This was the most exciting day in my life! I never had do speaking engagements in schools before where I received such a prestigious award, so I knew that I had to write the best darn speech of my life. It took me several rewrites until I felt very confident about it. The day came and my two colleagues who work in the autism field came to podium and made their remarks about me and our adult group. It was time for my speech I know they say to start a speech with a joke, well, I did not do that because I am not funny. I gave my acceptance speech in front of many important people in the audience including my eldest sister who has since passed on. When I came to the end of my speech, I got a standing ovation which was just incredible feeling of acceptance!

Jumping ahead many years, several projects had started coming my way and many of them required me to do some sort of public speaking. What I really enjoyed over the years was talking to the thousands of visitors who would tour the national Civil War Museum in Harrisburg where I had a table of civil war replica items. I would get to tell our visitors about each civil war artifact. Plus, I could talk about the real war artifacts we have on display throughout the museum. They would often have questions for me about either the war itself or about why the museum was here and many other questions. I also volunteer at my local museum, which is the Mechanicsburg Museum, that focuses on the history of the town of Mechanicsburg. I have been with them over a decade now. Getting back to working in the field of autism over the years, I have done many interviews and have been interviewed by a well-known autism self-advocate which was thrilling. Now over the years I have done several interviews for other autism projects that have come to me via other autism organizations. I have enjoyed every one of them and they have gone onto my autism resume.

Truth of the matter is I really enjoy speaking in front of people, it helps gets my creative juices flowing and it makes me happy. I wish more offers of public speaking engagements would come my way but I do not know how to go about this particular topic. I do not know if I am known well enough yet to get speaking engagements at local high schools and colleges. I guess I will have to wait until the fall when schools are back in session to get offers. I do have a new podcast that maybe starting for the Self-Advocates United as 1 organization and its board. I am not sure how much I will be involved with it yet. The one that I was a member of ended its run so I am hoping this will lead to a new golden opportunity for me. Today’s public speaking has been transformed by digital technology such as video teleconferencing, multimedia presentations such as meet.com, zoom.com teams.com and other platforms. In closing public speaking has a long history all the way to ancient Greece today public speaking comes in many forms and ways to do public speaking. I am proud to be a public speaker!