Strive for the next best thing and be accountable to yourself. Find your passion and never look back.
Creating Collaboration for Proactive Action!
Andrew Arboe: Autistic Self Advocate and Speaker is a brand created by Andrew Arboe to serve schools, providers and autism/disability organizations. As a freelance brand, his main services include public speaking, contracting, and information referrals for families. Andrew is also the Connecticut Ambassador for the SANDI Driving Simulator Program for Neurodiverse Technologies/Vanderbilt University and a Flutie Fellow for Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism. Andrew grew up with special education services for all his school life until he aged out in 2014. He decided to work for human services and education because he found little resources for young adults like himself. Andrew’s work passions include both employment and transportation areas in transitional services. Through his personal and work experiences, Andrew aims to become an employment service professional and eventually level up into a vocational rehabilitation counselor in Connecticut.
Main Services His public speaking service is well known as Andrew presented to organizations like Federation for Children with Special Needs, the Arc of Massachusetts, and the Association of Autism and Neurodiversity (AANE). Andrew was the keynote speaker for the 2023 Autism Connections Conference, Arc of Philadelphia’s 2026 Youth Leadership Summit and the 2026 Connecticut Youth Leadership Forum. During 2025, Andrew presented for the 2025 International Conference for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders in Orlando, Florida. His topics are focused on autism in major areas like special education, transportation, transitioning to adulthood, and employment. Each topic is based on personal experiences growing up and the professional life he developed over time. Andrew also does professional development and continuing education courses for his communities. A secondary service Andrew does is his contracting service. Contracting can consist of providing consultations to organizations with their autism project, blog writing, video projects, and research projects. Some examples include Andrew’s work with Anderson Center for Autism, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Southern Connecticut State University Neurodiverse Technologies A third service Andrew does his driver readiness services. Andrew’s services include being a content creator on driving topics with creating handouts and infographics. His public speaking and contracting roles are in effect with his driving work. Andrew offers virtual consultations for individuals and families on establishing driver routines. Not only does Andrew has those services, but his website also contains the advocacy work he has done on autism and learning how to drive. Learning to drive with limited resources inspired Andrew to pursue projects on making driving a legitimate topic to discuss individuals transitioning into adult life. He ran several programs, including founding and running Driving with Autism for 2022. Finally, his Autism and Driving Resource Database covers all 50 states of driving schools, adaptive programs, and other resources that relate to learning how to drive. Andrew wants families and individuals to know that there is something out there, and they are not alone. His Motivation? Andrew’s motivation is to not just improve the world one day at a time, but to show others that life is worth living. His adaptive work career allowed him to gain perspectives in not autistic self-advocates, but parents and professional circles as well. Collaboration is key to taking steps to solving issues in the communities like employment, transportation and transitioning to adulthood and beyond. His original focus on autism advocacy evolved over the years from his work on driver readiness for individuals into using his experiences to provide public speaking services while he works in special education and direct care. It was the willingness to get himself out there and not fear the world. There are numerous internal and external barriers that exist for any individual and diving into them taught me resilience. This struggle helps me relate to others who have a hard time finding the individualized steps to reach their goals. It is why Andrew helps individuals find their own path to finding what works for them. After all, each autistic individual has their own needs, and those needs should be embraced. It is all a journey to embrace the world! What does he do for fun? When not at work, Andrew loves to drive around in both Connecticut and Massachusetts. His favorite places for travel are restaurants (Taffer’s Traven, Junior’s Restaurant), coffee shops, movie theaters, arcades, retro game stores and work conferences. Andrew is a huge lover of iced coffee, which aids him for autism talks and related work. Andrew is also a lover of Japanese Role-Playing Games, and he is seen waiting for the next NieR title. |
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