12-Year-Old Cumming Boy Headed to College

CUMMING, Ga. - A 12-year-old Georgia boy with incredible gifts despite a lifelong struggle with Autism is heading to college in the fall.
The first thing you may notice about Alex Beach is that he is bigger than other kids at martial arts practice. At the age of 12 he also has a giant intellect. He is fluent in Japanese and Latin, composed his own music, and is a whiz at chess.
His mother tells us he has a genius IQ. After graduation from Eaton Academy in Roswell, Alex is headed to North Georgia College and State University in Dahlonega.
"I think it's kind of amazing for a 12-year-old kid like me with all my struggles to get to college," said Alex Beach.
He also has Autism, a condition characterized in varying degrees by isolation, social awkwardness, and repetitive behaviors such as rocking back and forth.
His mother is also his martial arts teacher. She says the physical and social contact involved in the sport is one way of working Alex past Autism.
"You just have to deal with it and constantly talk to him all the time I constantly give Alex cues don't do that walk this way," said Alex's mother, Melinda Beach.
She says when Alex starts college in June she will commute with him daily to the campus in Dahlonega. She says he'll go to class without her but adds the school is prepared to help Alex.
"They know that if he needs to test in a separate room they'll have a place with somebody to watch him," said Melinda Beach.
The challenge is nothing new to Melinda Beach and her husband or Alex, who is blind in one eye from a debilitating disease as a young child.
"He may be 30 and still be 18 socially. That is not something I can hold him back from. If you hold back the intellect, you have more problems with the autism," said Melinda Beach.
Alex's family said intellectually speaking he was ready to go to college at age ten, but they held him back until now to let his social skills catch up.

So to go to college in America now you need the social skills of a 12 year old autistic boy?

THAT'S what you get out of a story like that?

Leaves you out all way round huh?

I admire him and his strengths and his parents. Much to be proud of!

Been there done that. Pepperdine is for mature students.

Take a day off huh?

Yes, you would therefore be unqualified. But thanks for the additional info. I did not realize that Pepperdine was for the elderly.

and... how would you recognize that?