♪♪
Mike: I was in my 40's and I was single.
I basically wanted to find somebody before I died,
you know, I didn't want to be, I didn't want to die
lonely.
So I ran across this person named Margo Mouse
and we started emailing back and forth and about
10 years ago this weekend we had our first date.
And I knew my life would be changed forever.
♪♪
Mike: My name is Mike Dierdorf and I am 54
years old and I live in Grundy Center with my
wife, Margo.
She is an occupational therapist at Grundy County
Memorial Hospital.
And I have two stepsons on the autism spectrum.
One is 21 and the other one will be 19 in July.
And I am autistic.
I was diagnosed at the age of 4 and I couldn't go to
school until I had to learn to talk.
This was back in 1969 when the ratio was 1 in 10,000,
hardly anybody knew what autism was.
But I was one of those 10,000.
Thankfully I was able to start talking and then I
was able to go to kindergarten and I was
just integrated and I graduated on time and here
I am today.
Mike: I did speech therapy at the University of Iowa
Hospitals and Clinics.
So naturally that's Hawkeye country out there.
First down!
Mike: I always have been a fan and I always will be.
Yes! (clapping)
Mike: Hawkeye football is probably my
favorite.
I can't go to football games or that because it's
just too overwhelming for me.
So just various situations or if everybody is talking
at one time that kind of gets a little challenging
too and I may not react appropriately.
I'm kind of a homebody in that regard.
Another thing too is sudden change.
That is something I'm not real comfortable with.
I'm getting better at handling it.
But it's still something I'm not real comfortable
with.
♪♪
Mike: Getting married was obviously a
big achievement.
I'm very proud to be married and love my wife a
ton.
Margo: Something I think that helps in our
relationship is that inherently I also know
what is going to stress him out.
He likes the routines and actually it's kind of a
calming force in our household because I'm much
more spontaneous.
He's very steady in his demeanor and so that
really works well with the boys because they know
that they can depend upon him.
They both know that he would go to the ends of
the Earth for them.
Mike: I would say the successes I've had as a
parent is I know what they're going through.
Yeah, there's a couple of steps here, so be careful.
Mike: Both boys, or young men now, are on the
spectrum.
Got it working?
Yep, it ran about 10 minutes ago so it should
run again.
Okay.
Mike: It can be a challenge, but it's also
very rewarding to see not only our relationship grow
but watching Alex and Drew grow more and more not
only physically but socially and
psychologically and that.
It's just amazing just to watch them grow up.
I've been with Drew over half his life now.
I didn't think we would be really that tight when we
first started, but boy we're pretty tight.
It's time for the alphabet show --
Pat Sajak and Vanna White!
Margo: The reason why we can't do this interview
actually in our home is because if we were trying
to do this at home it would be intermingled with
Drew saying, shh, no talk, no talk, no, talk is over,
it's done, it's closed.
You want to draw it on your board?
That's one of your favorite things to draw.
Oh, nice!
Margo: So with Drew a lot of things get to be closed
if they're not what he wants.
What about Cookie Monster singing?
(singing)
Margo: He will have tantrums, meltdowns,
those types of things.
That's not to say that there aren't wonderful
celebrations of the things that he can do.
(Drew singing into tuba)
Oh, that's a good job singing.
♪♪
Margo: But, I want to make sure that people
understand that his world is markedly different from
anybody else's.
And my world, and thus Mike's, Alex's and
Grandma's, is totally different than anybody
else's.
Autism isn't just a diagnosis, it's not just
this problem, it's not that problem, it really
is, it totally overtakes your world, in some ways
good, in some ways bad.
Margo: Alex, who is now 21, he's a little bit
higher functioning.
So Alex sees this work ethic with Mike, I have a
job, I go every day, this is what we do and it has
worked out really well because he has been a
really great role model.
Mike: I commute to Cedar Falls every day.
I work at a place called Talk To Me Technologies
and it's about a 30 mile commute, about 35, 40
minutes to get from home to work.
Shannon Dirks: Talk To Me Technologies is a
mid-sized company.
What we do is provide speech devices for people
with complex communication needs.
Shannon: Mike has been here about a year and a
half now.
Mike's position is manufacturing associate.
His main key job responsibility is to
disinfect the devices that we manufacture.
Mike: I usually go through maybe between 10 and 15 a
day, depending on our workload.
I usually have enough work to do all day.
Shannon: If they come in for a repair or if they
come back from a trial or a loan before they can go
to the next person he manufactures different
components for our devices and then also general
office duties as well.
Mike is incredibly detail oriented.
He has a drive to do the best that he can and
really helps us serve as many clients as we can
just by being so meticulous in what he
does.
Really the only accommodation that we have
for him is he does have a door on his work area
where he spends most of his time because sometimes
the environment does get a little loud.
So he can choose day-to-day or hour-to-hour
if he needs to shut that door and have a little
more quiet.
Mike came to the company with goals set out trying
to help other people with the same diagnosis that he
has in the autism community.
Mike: It makes me feel really good when I go home
at night saying hey, I helped another person gain
their communication.
And it makes me feel proud to be here.
(applause)
Mike: I am an autism advocate here in
the state of Iowa and I have been doing this since
2013.
And my main goal right now is to talk to law
enforcement people and safety people.
If you hear a child, a child with autism missing,
I would check the water every single time.
Mike: And for businesses, because hiring autistic
people I feel is a good idea, and not enough
autistic people are employed and there's a lot
of talent in our community that hasn't been tapped
into, and what I do is talk to businesses about
why hiring a person on the spectrum would be a good
fit for their company.
♪♪
Mike: I think a common misnomer that
people think about autism is they're not very smart.
And that is not true.
People get that idea because of the way we do
things.
But we're not worse or better, we just think
differently.
Margo: Autism is Mike, a great dad, working, has a
great job, goes to work every single day.
Autism is my brother who is beyond brilliant.
However, with Drew it's grieving the fact that he
couldn't get his driver's license, that he's not
going to get married, that he's not going to have
kids.
That is autism.
Autism is anywhere in between.
So it really is a spectrum.
Mike: If you've met one person with autism, you've
met one person with autism.
It's such a varying spectrum.
And I kind of compare autism to snowflakes, no
two people are exactly alike.
♪♪
This program is part of the Move To Include
Initiative made possible with support from the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private
corporation funded by the American people.
♪♪
The Max and Helen Guernsey Charitable
Foundation, in support of educational programming on
statewide Iowa Public Television.
♪♪