Cape Cod Kidz

Kyle Burns enjoys life as 'Big Man On Campus'

Overcomes autism to attend program at Cape Cod Community College

 Kyle Burns of Plymouth has enrolled in Project Forward at Cape Cod Community College in West Barnstable, where he has been selected as a peer leader.

Student shows flair for short-story writing

By James Kinsella

Mary Gray's voice leaps up when she hears the name.

"Kyle Burns!" she exclaims. "I can't say enough about him."

Gray taught English and cooking to Burns when he attended the League School of Greater Boston in Walpole.

In May, Burns, who has autism, graduated from the school. He has moved on to Cape Cod Community College, where he is completing his first semester in Project Forward, a vocational training program at the college.

Burns, 22, who lives in Plymouth, commutes three days a week to the community college in West Barnstable, a trip that in the morning involves a tag team of several buses.

The young man was happy to start his studies at the college.

"It felt great," Burns said. "I always like to use the expression, 'Big Man On Campus.'

"Everybody seems very nice here," he said. "I kind of gained a little more independence here."
Kyle's father, Ed Burns, said going to the community college has been a good experience for his son.

"Kyle reads very well," Ed Burns said. "He's interested in world geography and world religions and world cultures. He's getting a flair for writing short stories."

Peter Daley, director of Project Forward, said Burns has been selected as a "peer leader," a program participant who shows leadership skills. As a peer leader, Burns will be among those students who show other prospective students around the campus and help answer their questions.

"He seems like a very motivated young man," said Daley, who's worked in the program for 14 years and directed it for six. "He's interested in learning. He's interested in work."

The program offers training in office technology, maintenance and home repair, child and animal care, and culinary arts. A total of 135 students are enrolled in the Project Forward program.

Next semester, in addition to his Project Forward work, Burns plans to take a mainstream writing course at the college.

He already has been composing adaptations of fairy tales and famous stories, bringing them into a modern context.They include "Emily of Oz," a retelling of the Wizard of Oz; "A Jock, a Nerd and a Beanstalk," where a science project involving RNA yields unexpected results; and "A Modern Christmas Carol," whose characters include a homeless man.

He's also written a parody of the Beatles called "The Needles Anthology."

"They didn't make it as big as the Beatles did," Burns said.

Chapters include "The Peter Graves Jugband Society"; "The Cave"; "Needlemania Reaches the North"; and "The 'Forget About It' Project."

Burns may have been born years after the breakup of his Beatles, but he knows his source material, engaging in a discussion of which songs are included on the CD, "The Beatles/1967-70."

His father, Ed Burns, said he became aware when Kyle was a young infant that his son was progressing more slowly than other infants his age.

"We didn't know what it was," Ed Burns said.

Kyle eventually was diagnosed as autistic, which Ed Burns said is a neurological condition that, among other things, greatly affects an individual's ability to talk.

Ed Burns said his son took a long time to learn how to speak. He found his son also would be bothered by certain sounds, such as that coming from a neon light, or by seeing a fire alarm box on the wall, fearing the loud noise that would come when the lever was pulled down.

Kyle, however, attended regular public school as a child. By the time he became an adolescent, however, his parents began pushing for special placement.

That's when he began attending the League School. (His graduation picture is shown above.)

Both Kyle's father and teacher Mary Gray said Kyle was very quiet and introverted when he began attending the school.

But his education there, Ed Burns said, made Kyle "outgoing, sociable, confident."

"It was a beautiful experience," Ed Burns said.

Gray said Kyle "was a great addition to the classroom."

When the class was discussing a story set earlier in history, Gray said, Kyle periodically raise his hand and ask for a "costume check" - a description of the clothes that the people were wearing. He wanted to visualize what they looked like.

"That's how deep he runs," Gray said.

Most people know Gray as "Mimi," but Kyle explained to her that he couldn't call her that.

"I'm not going to call you 'Mimi,'" Kyle told her. "If someone thought to name you after the Blessed Virgin Mary, I could never change that name."

Gray said Kyle brought some strong suits to the table, including a wonderful family who went the extra mile in getting Kyle to push his boundaries.

"I'm so glad he's having the chance to go on after the League School," she said.

Kyle said he did feel very sad graduating from the League School, knowing that, "some of the kids I would never see again."

Now that he's at Cape Cod Community College, he's holding off on choosing a particular career path.

"I haven't thought of it yet," Kyle said. "That's the problem: some people just race through it. It just happens."

He's certain of one thing: "I'm going to meet somebody here, somebody I can have a relationship with."

Ed Burns is proud of what his son has done and of the potential he's shown.

"Here's a young man who has a significant disability," said Kyle's father, Ed Burns. "He's putting a lot of effort into learning how to adapt in our world. He's risen to the challenge."

 Burns has been writing modern adaptations of well-known stories, including "Emily of Oz," drawn from L. Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz."