Autism advocate with a real drive for success

Dorian Tisato has a name – and a voice – familiar to many South Australians.

As a reporter with the Australian Traffic Network, the Blackfriars old scholar appears on the TV news and his traffic updates are heard across multiple radio stations.

His high-profile job is a long way from his days at Blackfriars, where, he admits, he struggled to fit in.

“I loved Drama, I loved doing English Coms. They were probably the real highlights for me,” said Mr Tisato (BPS’06), who came to Blackfriars as a Year 7 student in 2001.

“But school was challenging at times. I always knew I had some differences and … I was very much an outsider. I was quite socially awkward. I didn’t really fit in at all.”

It was about a year after graduating from Blackfriars that Mr Tisato’s mum suggested there might be a reason he always felt “different”.

“My mum wanted me to go and see someone because she thought I might be autistic. And I got two diagnoses from two different psychologists and they both came back with exactly the same thing. Autism. It was a relief, actually,” Mr Tisato said.

Armed with a new confidence on the back of his diagnosis, Mr Tisato, who, among other jobs, had been working as a personal trainer, decided to head to university as a mature-age student.

In 2018, he graduated from the University of South Australia with a Bachelor of Journalism and Bachelor of Arts (Writing and Creative Communication) and a dream of working in radio.

That dream started as a 10-year-old, inspired by the likes of Amanda Blair, to whom Mr Tisato would listen on SAFM.

While still at university, he secured some volunteer work with Adelaide community radio station Fresh FM.

“I was doing news reading, traffic reporting, announcing, producing, digital, street crew,” he said. “I was surviving on a few hours’ sleep a night because I was studying and I was getting up early. It was crazy, because I was doing all these different things, but it really paid off in the end.”

After university, Mr Tisato had stints with Mix 102.3 and Cruise 1323, before taking up a casual position with the Australian Traffic Network. Then, in 2020, covid hit and everything changed.

“I was struggling to get work at the time … really struggling, thinking, ‘what am I going to do, what am I going to do?’. And I saw this job pop up … and I got it. So, I became a content writer for Autism SA. And it was fantastic. This was a golden ticket and I was lucky to get a look at the chocolate factory.”

Mr Tisato went to work helping to create Autism SA’s online resource Autistics’ Guide to Adulthood. The guide is described as an “interactive resource for the autistic community, co-designed by autistic adults, (which) aims to provide useful information, strategies and activities”.

As well as developing material for the guide, Mr Tisato sat on its National Advisory Group and did voiceover work for much of the video content.

“By the end of it all, after all the research was done and the modules completed, I looked at it and thought, ‘this is incredible’,” Mr Tisato said of the guide.

“And we very much wanted autistic voices to bring this to life. If it was just someone who had a double degree in psychology and sociology and they were neurotypical, it wouldn’t do the modules justice. The one thing that was most important was to allow those autistic voices to be heard.”

And having those autistic voices heard is something for which Mr Tisato continues to advocate.

“My people have been heavily stereotyped in the media,” he said. “I say they have been ‘Hollywoodised’ by film and TV where we’re scientists, or just sit in a corner. But, no, we’re actually so much more creative than you give us credit for.

“We need to break that stereotype and move away from that dull cliché that we’re a bunch of outsiders.”

Today, back at the Australia Traffic Network, Mr Tisato is living his childhood dream.

“I still pinch myself every day,” he said. “I say to people, ‘at the end of the day it’s just a job’, but sometimes it feels like more than that. I have to give something special for my audience. It’s not about me, it’s about them and I want to make them feel warm, make them feel the care.

“It’s a rewarding job and it’s a job that I have to take very seriously and really give it my all every day. So, every day is a day to remember.”