CINCINNATI — Alexa Moulder had no desire to live in Ohio — then her husband's job took her family from her beloved New Jersey to the Buckeye State.
Now, she looks back on it and says, "I say this was a godsend. I mean, it really was. There was a reason why we wound up here. And it was for this."
The "this" Moulder is talking about is Best Point Education and Behavioral Health's Heidt Center of Excellence. The program on Red Bank Road is a school that focuses on educating people living with autism.
Six years ago, Moulder found the school was the perfect fit for her son Max.
"Most schools," said Moulder, "especially public schools that have a special ed program, it's all different disabilities all in this one classroom and they're not really trying to say, 'what do you want to do? What makes you happy? What is your passion?' That's what they do here. Let's find something for you."
For Max, it was art.
"That's always been his thing," said Moulder. "He has a desk in the basement, he'll sit for hours and draw and draw."
Max, now 22 and a graduate of the program, sits holding a colorful children's book he wrote and illustrated titled "Billy the Bilby." The illustrations depict animals working together and the landscape he's drawn is of Australia.
"I love Australian content," says Max Moulder. "It's rare to see Australian content."
He explained in great detail that a bilby is a marsupial and, when asked, reads aloud from his book.
"Deep in the outback of Australia," reads Max. "Where the sun is warm, the ground is dry and the rain is rarely seen, lived a bilby named Billy."
He admits his mom and dad helped him with the story of friendship and of learning. But the drawings are all done by Max.
"In the beginning," said his mom, "I thought he was tracing because he would bring it to me and he'd be like, look at this. I'd be like, 'where did you trace that from?' He's like, 'I didn't trace it, I drew it'."
Max's family self-published his book through Amazon. Already, Max has written and fully illustrated his next book. The trouble is in getting a publisher to latch on to Max's big ideas. Moulder said her son loves to comb the shelves at Joseph-Beth Booksellers, and that his dream would be to see his book on display and people purchasing it.
Moulder and her husband tell Max to work hard every day on his craft — and he does. Hour after hour he draws, colors and shades the characters he creates in their surreal surroundings.
"He has sketchbooks that are probably that thick with pencil sketches in them," she says. "Mind-blowing. And he taught himself 100%. Nobody ever taught him how to do any of that."
She said the teachers at the Heidt Center of Excellence pushed Max. But now that he has aged out of the program, his mother worries about what comes next for her son.
"Once they age out, that is the biggest fear in the world, you know? They're aging out, we don't know what to do. You don't own a family business, I mean, are they going to work at Dunkin' Donuts? Are they going to work at McDonald's? Is that going to fulfill them?" said Moulder.
Max does work part-time at a local McDonald's, but she knows to be fulfilled he needs to create.
Moulder is sending her son's work to any publisher she feels will look at it. She knows her son has the talent. She knows he can do the work. Now, she's just hoping for Max — and for all the families like theirs — that there will be a way to make Max's dream come true.
"I want this for him so badly," says Moulder. "I want people to believe, and parents of kids with autism, and kids with autism to believe and see that it can be done. It can. You can do it."
