ASCV Speaker Series: Disability as Possibility with Hari Srinivasan

During this presentation, Hari will share insights gathered through his personal experience of autism and discuss his research on the impact of labeling and expectations on life outcomes for students and youth with disabilities. He challenges professionals, educators, and providers to be game changers – adopting a growth mindset, an emphatic discipline, and an approach of ‘equity of access’ to support and guide students and youth with disabilities to create their own personal agency and long-term quality of life. Through that understanding and ability to see ‘disability as possibility’, opportunities are born from those possibilities so students and youth can take detours, challenge the sinkholes, pave new roads, and persevere.

About the presenter: Hari Srinivasan is a minimally-speaking autistic student at UC Berkeley, Psychology major, Disability Studies minor, Phi Beta Kappa and Haas Scholar. He is a student journalist for the Daily Californian, student instructor for a class on autism, research assistant at the UC Berkeley Lab and was the first nonspeaking president of the student body, Autism: Spectrum At Cal.

Hari was recently selected to serve on the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, which advises federal policy and priorities. Hari is also a Board member and Whistleblower Compliance Oicer at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network and on the Council of Autistic Advisors for the Autism Society of America. He also enjoys creative writing and poetry.