Kerry Magro is an author, movie consultant and motivational speaker, and has spoken in 100 different locations in the last year.

When he was a child, his parents never imagined such a life for him as in early childhood he struggled to talk and he was diagnosed with autism aged just four.

Mr Magro, now 30, said: “I didn’t say my first word until I was 2½.

“I didn’t speak in full sentences for another three years. In my early years, it was a grey area whether I’d ever go to college or get a full-time job.”

He had sensory problems and was overwhelmed by everything from going to a grocery store to a rainstorm.

Mr Magro said: “A rainstorm would make me feel like time was standing still. It felt like hundreds of bees running through my head as I tried to process so many different things. Sometimes I had a meltdown and sometimes I just dealt with sensory overload by twirling my body or my hair.”

His parents, from Jersey City, New Jersey, were determined to get him the best help they could find.

Their hard work paid off, because after years of behavioural, speech, music and theatre therapy, Mr Magro’s communication skills grew.

For the last eight years, he’s been a professional speaker and travelled the world to talk about autism and the problems of people with special needs.

Mr Magro is in Bermuda this week to give a talk about his experiences as part of autism awareness month.

He was invited to the island by the Bermuda Autism Support Education Society.

One of his aims is to dispel some of the myths around autism.

Mr Magro said: “People are always asking me if I’m good at math. I’m not, but I think there’s this idea that all people with autism are good at math.”

He blamed the maths myth on the 1988 Dustin Hoffman film Rain Man, in which the star played a man with autism who was a wizard with numbers.

Mr Magro said he thought that the movie may have raised awareness of autism when it came out, as there wasn’t much known about the disorder at the time, but the film also caused damage by only presenting one view of autism.

Another stereotype he highlighted is the view that only boys have autism.

Mr Magro said: “Boys are five times more likely to be diagnosed with autism.”

He said he worried that gender stereotypes caused some girls with autism to go undiagnosed.

Mr Magro became interested in public speaking while studying for his undergraduate degree in sports management.

He said: “I thought I would go into the business world. While I was in college, I started mentoring children who had a wide range of disabilities.

“I fell in love with being able to work with them. Then I realised a lot of them were not accepted for who they were and their different abilities and quirks.

“I decided when I was still in college that I wanted to pursue a career in public speaking and help them.”

He went on to get a master’s degree in strategic communications from Seton Hall University in New Jersey, and is now working on a doctorate in educational technology leadership at New Jersey City University.

Mr Magro said he aimed to teach at college level and wanted to look at the use of technology to help special-needs students.

He credited his family’s support with getting him where he is today.

He added: “I was not very self-motivated as a kid. One day I had that lightbulb clicking moment. I realised my parents were working so hard to see my progress. I thought I should have the same motivation.”

He advised young people with autism to pursue their therapies for as long as possible.

Mr Magro said: “Continue to try to become a better version of yourself.”

He added he had continued therapy up to his last year of high school.

Mr Magro said: “I still have difficulty with loud noises. Before I left for Bermuda, we had a huge storm in New Jersey. There was a lot of rain. Even though it didn’t bother me as much as it did when I was a kid, it still hindered me and made me lose focus.”

He added a social life can also be difficult.

His second book was about his first experience of dating aged 18.

Mr Magro said: “I felt like a deer caught in the headlights. I had no idea how to speak to women.”

Like a lot of people on the autism spectrum, he had a tendency to focus on the topics he found most interesting, in his case movies and basketball.

In a bid to make sense of the 18-month relationship, he wrote his feelings in a journal.

Mr Magro said: “Writing has always been therapy for me. I love it.”

His journal later became the basis for Autism and Falling in Love: To the One That Got Away, which was published in 2014.

He added there was a lot of focus on children with autism, but not as much on young people with autism as they entered into adulthood.

Mr Magro said: “When these children age out of school, a lot don’t have resources they would have had in adolescence. People don’t understand the concept that these children won’t be children for ever. The community needs to make sure they have opportunities.”

Mr Magro started KFM Making a Difference in 2011 to break down barriers for people with special needs and also to give college scholarships for adults with autism.

He has also acted as an autism consultant on films such as the 2012 movie Joyful Noise.

Mr Magro said: “Today, I am most proud of my career in public speaking. I’ve been able to travel all over the place and visit beautiful places like Bermuda.”

His first book, published in 2013, was Defining Autism From The Heart, in which he detailed his early experiences with autism.

It became a bestseller among parents of children with special needs.

Mr Magro has two more books planned for the spring of 2019 — one a collection of essays from people in the autism community and the second a children’s book.

• Mr Magro’s talk Defining Autism: From Non-Verbal to Professional Speaker, will be held tonight at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute at 6.30pm. Tickets are $25 for BASE members and $35 for non-members and are available on www.ptix.bm. For more information, e-mail basebda@yahoo.com or Sara Westhead on bermudachinagirl@gmail.com, or visit www.bermudaautism.bm. Mr Magro’s website is at kerrymagro.com