Our guest speaker for July 16, 2026 was William Ference, Sonoma State University graduate, magna cum laude. William’s degree is in English Literature. His current hobbies include reading, writing, world affairs, and video games. William spoke openly about his struggle to become educated while living with autism.

William's autism first manifested at an early age when he started speaking his first words but then stopped speaking altogether. He was originally diagnosed with moderate to severe autism and he was entered into speech and occupational therapy. At age 2 or 3 he could spell and respond to verbal command but was functionally non-verbal. William noted that the fact that someone struggles with speech does not mean that they don’t understand what other people are saying. His first formal education was at Madrone School in Santa Rosa. Lots of people at Madrone, including his teachers, didn’t understand the dynamic. He was provided with a special needs aid but he was unable to establish connections or make friends with other students. He was also placed in a weekly social skills class. His teachers used a system called Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), which focuses on reinforcing positive behaviors and reducing negative behaviors through structured interventions such as rewards/withholding rewards.

William believes that ABA was unhelpful and not particularly useful in helping him learn. William was intentionally bullied by other students and often punished by his teachers at Madrone and he was ultimately transferred to Anova School. William also believes that at the time schools didn’t have the ability to effectively deal with neurodiverse students. Once William started taking liberal arts classes at Sonoma State he started to understand more about schools’ approach to autistic students and how those approaches often failed to educate those children. William reminded us of a useful way to understand people living with autism: “Once you’ve seen one person on the spectrum … you’ve seen one person on the spectrum.”

Thank you, William, for the thoughtful and very helpful discussion of your experiences in education while living with autism. And, congratulations on your getting your degree with such a phenomenal qualification.

On a regular basis, our resident photo pro Warren Smith, submits pictures of what is going on at the weekly meetings. You can always find the most recent pictures at the websites photo journal called "Meeting Sighting" Please note that all the meeting photos for the entire Rotary year are at this location with the most recent on the last page.

Thanks for all the great pictures Warren! Link to Meeting Sightings. The most recent are on the last page!