Twenty-six-year-old Connor Samsky is a data engineer. He is a strategic thinker, a whiz with numbers, highly focused and detail oriented. Yet many of these traits, which have helped him find success in a work environment, were once obstacles to his learning and development. Thanks to the care, support and opportunities provided by the team at Marcus Autism Center, Connor has been able to channel his abilities and realize his true potential.

The difference the right diagnosis can make

When Connor was just 2 years old, he’d already taught himself to read. His parents, Brett and Louise Samsky, found that remarkable, yet confusing. Along with this extraordinary ability, they noticed other signs that Connor wasn’t developing typically. For example, instead of forming his own speech, Connor would echo back the things his mother and father said to him. He also would line up his toys and he had trouble keeping eye contact. At the time, the family didn’t know that these were early signs of autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

“Because he was a child of high intelligence, I realize now that I overlooked some things,” says Louise. “He’s our only child, so I didn’t have a way to compare his behavior to that of other children. And at the time, there wasn’t anywhere close to the amount of autism awareness that there is today.”

At age 3, a developmental pediatrician at Marcus Autism Center diagnosed Connor with Asperger’s syndrome— a diagnosis used at the time that has since been incorporated into ASD. This diagnosis came as a relief for Louise and Brett because it meant Connor could get the treatment he needed. From age 3 to age 10, Connor received some sort of therapy almost every day at Marcus Autism Center, including speech and occupational therapies. The Samskys also did a lot of practice at home with Connor, and he had a school facilitator.

“Most children have to be taught to do certain things. Most children have to be taught how to read,” says Louise. “Connor didn’t need someone to teach him that, but he did need someone to teach him how to communicate with others and how to have relationships.”

The importance of early intervention

Louise and Brett are adamant that this early intervention made a huge impact on Connor’s life. He grew into an independent teenager who excelled in writing and history and learned to speak Spanish. Then, in high school, he became more than a patient with autism. He became an autism researcher.

“Thanks to the generosity of one of our donors, we have been able to offer paid internships to high-school-students with autism,” says Gordon Ramsay, PhD, Director of the Spoken Communication Laboratory at Marcus Autism Center. “Connor worked with me directly on a research project measuring patterns of head growth in infants at risk for autism. He was a very quick learner. He was also exceptionally accurate. Connor's measurements were always highly consistent and better, in fact, than my own despite years of practice. He was faster than any of us and kept going for much longer.”

“My internship at Marcus Autism Center was my first experience working in a professional setting,” says Connor. “I learned what it takes a be a professional. I got a head start over a lot of my peers. This experience really helped me in my career.”

Connor worked alongside Dr. Ramsay as a research intern on and off for two years before heading to college. This experience, along with the specialized care he received throughout his childhood, was invaluable. “Where I am in life and what I am able to do is because of Marcus [Autism Center],” he says. “The most important skill I learned was how to advocate for myself and ask for help.”

Interactions lead to better understanding

Connor wasn’t the only one who gained valuable insight from his time at Marcus Autism Center. “From my own perspective, spending time with and talking to teenagers with autism helps me better understand differences in their speech and language in the context of natural social interactions,” says Dr. Ramsay. “Many of those differences we notice that are part of the everyday social experience of autism go right back to toddlerhood and have given us new ideas about early biomarkers we can look for in the first two years of life.”

In addition, Dr. Ramsay says that welcoming children with autism into research programs as collaborators as well as research participants is an everyday reminder for researchers of the experiences babies diagnosed with ASD will have across the whole autism spectrum as they grow older.

“Nobody who does research on ASD will ever understand autism unless they spend a lot of time with families and children with autism,” says Dr. Ramsay. “Having teenagers with autism of all abilities working alongside us has helped us to feel part of the autism community. For many of my other students who have never worked with people with autism before, it also helps them to appreciate different ways of doing things, and to be more aware of the environment they are creating for other people around them. Creating calmer, friendlier office spaces with fewer distractions, which many people with autism need, is good for everyone.”

When patient families become donor families

Since Connor’s diagnosis, the Samsky family has made it their mission to support the work of researchers like Dr. Ramsay and promote the importance of early intervention. In addition to the family’s significant financial support for Marcus Autism Center, Louise has been an active member of the Marcus Autism Center Board and the family helped start a program at a group of preschools that supports screening for early intervention.

“I truly believe early intervention changes a child’s destiny,” says Louise. “Our children will be the adults in our society soon, and it’s critical to help them early on so that they can be productive, independent adults.”