Ed-Dee G. Williams wouldn’t describe himself as a hero.
Yet, that’s exactly what the Celtics—and the 19,600 fans at TD Garden—would call him.
Williams, an assistant professor at the Boston College School of Social Work, received the Celtics Heroes Among Us award on Dec. 7 for developing a communication simulation application designed for Black autistic youth. The app, “Asking for Help”, enables users to practice social skills with the guidance of a virtual coach who offers praise and feedback.
But Williams wasn’t always sure this was the direction he would take.
“It hasn’t been linear, by any means,” Williams said. “I originally went to undergrad to be an architect and I got suspended after my first year. I was struggling with my academics. My GPA seemed like a 1.8 or something.”
He returned a year later with a different path in mind—sociology, particularly focused on the ongoing conversations around race.
Initially, a career in social work didn’t seem appealing to Williams.
“Social work was the field that took kids from their homes to me,” Williams said.
His perspective would change, however, after learning about the field of clinical social work. The prospect of making a difference in the lives of people struggling with their mental health quickly captivated him.
“It just became kind of a natural next step,” Williams said. “I was like, ‘Oh, I would love to be a therapist and work with black youth and black adults who are navigating mental health concerns.”
A master’s in social work, followed by a Ph.D. in social work and sociology from the University of Michigan, set Williams on his path to help those who were struggling to help themselves.
“I could do this work,” Williams said. “I could be a professor and do this research.”
But Williams’ research is different. Instead of being confined to his desk, he starts by identifying the needs of the community.
“[My research] starts off with the community—what do they need, what they’re looking for, how can I support them,” Williams said. “And then it goes from that to what we can create, what can we build to address those needs.”
Williams grew up with a brother on the autism spectrum who struggled in systems that, according to Williams, didn’t meet his needs. This motivated Williams to explore ways to help Black autistic youth.
The first step was recognizing the impact race and neurodivergence can have on how people view themselves and the world around them.
“Autism is an identity as much as it is a diagnosis,” Williams said. “Race is an identity as much as it is a racial identity, so each of them have specific ways in which it impacts people’s lives.”
These impacts often manifest themselves as challenges.
“To be autistic in U.S. society and deal with ableism, deal with mistreatment, deal with navigating a bureaucratic system that doesn’t always drive the services and resources you need, and then to be Black and deal with things like racism and discrimination and navigate programs that aren’t really tailored towards your community,” Williams said.
According to Williams, autistic youth are around four times more likely to experience depression than their non-autistic peers. But he noticed a surprising lack of dialogue surrounding this disparity.
“It’s just astronomically higher,” Williams said. “And I was like, ‘How is no one talking about this, like how is this not a thing to talk about?’”
Williams sought to understand this issue and find ways it could potentially be addressed.
“Let’s understand, what are some of the factors associated with depression for Black autistic youth,” Williams said. “And then what kind of treatments and care can we bring in that are race-specific, that really think about people’s culture and their background and their experiences.”
Williams quickly realized that one of the biggest barriers to proper treatment and care for Black autistic youth was the limited discourse around the subject.
“It’s not just depression, it’s how do you talk about it?” Williams said. “How do you get your youth to talk about it?”
While working with a community partner at the Color of Autism in Detroit, Williams began interviewing youth to try to better understand this phenomenon.
“I don’t know how to talk to my parents about this,” Williams said, quoting his interviewees. “My parents don’t want to talk to me about this.”
While working under Matthew Smith, a professor of social work at the University of Michigan, Williams was presented with an opportunity to create something to address this need.
SIMmersion, a communication technology app, approached him to ask if he had any ideas for an application for this purpose. He had a few.
“I got a billion ideas,” Williams said. “Are they realistic? I don’t know. We’ll see.”
Eventually, Williams landed on the idea of creating an application that would first educate youth on depression from a racially informed lens. The app would then simulate a conversation with a school teacher, helping youth learn how to express their feelings to others and seek help.
“Let’s see how well you can describe them and get help for what you’re experiencing,” Williams said. “And then it ends with, ‘Can you get the teacher to help you talk to your parents?’”
The idea was promising, but testing revealed that different iterations might be needed for users at varying levels of the autism spectrum to better meet their unique needs. Some wanted the teacher to smile more, while others found the language too complex.
Overall, though, there was one response that Williams welcomed: the app was necessary.
“The people who’ve tested the program have overwhelmingly told us how much they enjoy it and how it is needed,” Williams said. “I can publish research papers all day. I can build 20 interventions. If no one needs them, or no one cares, or it’s not gonna impact, then what’s the point of it?”
David Nelson, MCAS ’27 and one of Williams’ research assistants, highlighted the impact of the simulation on Black youth, both in helping them manage their emotions and in navigating interactions with those who may struggle to understand autism.
“From what I’ve seen, a lot of people that are dealing with autism, they struggle not only labeling their emotions but navigating the world because the world doesn’t understand them,” Nelson said. “Seeing their faces light up when they have a tool that’s made for them, they feel special and heard.”
After conducting many test runs of the application, Williams realized that not only did the youth benefit from the simulation, but their parents did as well.
“A lot of parents don’t realize how widespread depression is for autistic youth,” Williams said. “So this is also for a lot of them an eye-opener, like ‘Oh wow, I didn’t realize how bad or high these rates were, so maybe I need to have a conversation with my child.’”
Parents of children with autism often face unique challenges as they adapt to the distinct needs and experiences of their children. Nelson helped Williams conduct a study that explored this relationship in the context of fatherhood.
“The first project that we were working on was the Black autistic youth and fatherhood study,” Nelson said. “ That was essentially asking Black fathers who have children who are autistic about how their perceptions of fatherhood changed when they had an autistic youth.”
Research assistants like Nelson work under Williams’ project coordinator, Fatima Vakil, MSW ’25. Vakil is currently focused on expanding the app’s reach to a larger audience by applying for federal grants.
“We applied last year, we got some feedback, so we’re hoping to re-submit again,” Vakil said. “Once we hear back, we plan to scale this up and also implement a lot of the feedback that we’re getting from the participants who we’re scheduling currently.”
Ultimately, Williams hopes that this extra support will help him adjust the simulation to meet the needs of youth from other racial backgrounds.
“And though, where this program is tailored towards Black autistic youth, the goal will be long-term to say, ‘Hey can we take this and tailor it toward Latino youth, Asian youth, towards these different populations,’” Williams said.
An important factor that Williams must consider throughout the process is selecting the best placement for the simulation to reach the greatest number of autistic children. Vakil sees schools as important hubs where the application could be harnessed for everyday use.
“I think it would be really cool to see it in schools or specifically in special education programs or it to be widely accessible, like if primary care physicians can even recommend trying the program to help parents who are trying to assess whether or not their child needs help,” Vakil said.
Williams’ goals became a lot more attainable after he received the Heroes Among Us award at a Celtics game in December—an honor that took him by surprise.
“I didn’t expect it at all,” Williams said. “Someone reached out to me on LinkedIn. I thought it was fake, to be honest.”
As it turns out, it was anything but fake. Williams was greeted by a packed crowd at the Dec. 7 game, who cheered his name as he walked onto the court.
“In my head, no one’s gonna pay attention,” Williams said. “It was a standing ovation. People stood up and cheered. Some people tried chanting my name, which was really weird.”
Responses to his work and the award poured in from Williams’ family. His dad saw him on TV, and his son excitedly picked up a local newspaper at school that featured Williams’ story.
Williams was happy to integrate those who expressed interest into his research agenda.
“Being community engaged, for me, has been like, ‘Yeah they can help, absolutely,’” Williams said. “ I would love to actually have them be part of our advisory board and have a say in what we do with it and give us feedback on it throughout the time we’re developing it.”
Williams wants to get the community talking—no matter how uncomfortable those conversations may be.
“For Black autistic youth, the first part is just awareness,” Williams said. People try to avoid—I think oftentimes—things with race because they want to avoid that conversation, I say to people, ‘We can’t avoid the conversation if it’s actually having an impact, if it’s important here.’”
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