As a child, David Pedemonte-Forte couldn’t speak. He bit his arms until they bled and hit his head on the floor, table and walls. His mother, Gloria Pedemonte, tried not to cry as she held him. “But at times, my tears would mix up with his blood,” she said.

This week, she sobbed for a different reason: Her son, first diagnosed with autism at age 5, graduated Friday from college with a bachelor’s degree and a dean’s special honor. He is 21.

Autism, a developmental disorder that impairs communication and social skills, affects one in 500 children – including more than 1,600 in Miami-Dade public schools. It can cause repetitive, intensely focused behavior, and is nearly four times more common in boys than girls.

Doctors have no cure for the condition, which shows varying degrees of severity, but with guidance some kids not only finish high school and college, but excel in their fields.

Pedemonte-Forte, now six-foot-five, studied computer animation hoping to someday work for DreamWorks, founded by Steven Spielberg. He memorizes characters’ dialogue, reciting lines as his favorite movies play on mute.

He especially likes anime, Japanese animation, and his room is lined with oil paintings he has done in that style. On his 12-inch iBook, he shows a visitor to the family’s Homestead house a 16-minute trailer he created for a film he hopes to make, Pastor Samurai Kappei, about a Christian who travels to Japan to fight evil (more as it develops).

He has learned some Japanese, and said he hopes to marry a Japanese woman because she would be devoted to him like his mom and never leave. “The thing is, I may or may not be ready to be free from my family just yet,” he said.

Common perceptions about autistic children’s limitations are off target, says a mother involved in a budding national movement to gain respect for autistic kids.

“These descriptions of autistic children being empty shells with no emotions are really just a terrible stereotype,” said M. Evans, who lives near Dayton, Ohio. “Parents shouldn’t despair when they get the diagnosis. They should know their child can have a bright future.”

Pedemonte-Forte’s journey from mute tantrums to a college degree was without formal treatment: no psychiatrists, no therapy, no pills, his mother said.

She refused to let him be medicated or treated like a child, she said. ‘You keep telling them ‘Poor this, poor baby,’ and they become dependent. You have to set goals.”

So she forged her own prescription: tough love and patience.

“Every handicapped child has a potential, you just have to help them learn what it is,” she said. “No matter if you have to repeat it over and over a thousand times a day, it will sink in.”

When Pedemonte-Forte was born, the sky seemed the limit. He won baby beauty pageants and loved to draw, his mother recalled. But time passed and still, he did not speak. In kindergarten, school officials said something serious was wrong: He had autism. In denial, Pedemonte pulled him from class.

“I’d never even heard of the word autism,” she said. “I thought they were crazy.”

Facing facts, she enrolled him again, determined to personally “get him out” of the disease by forcing him to do it on his own. In the special sign language that mother and son developed, the non-verbal boy would come to her and rub his belly to ask for food. Of huge help were Pedemonte-Forte’s five brothers and sisters and three cousins, who lived with and supported his family as they moved from home to home across South Miami-Dade. The house was filled with constant company and noise. He learned to mimic his siblings, doing math or making sandwiches. He still cooks his own breakfast and lunch.

In school, he aced special education classes at Biscayne Elementary, Cutler Ridge Middle and Coral Reef High. He danced the moonwalk in assembly, went to Disney World for Grad Night and hit the prom in a rented silver Jaguar. He’s never had a girlfriend: his older brothers were his prom dates.

High school can be crucial for autistic children: Social stressors can trigger anxiety or depression and can undermine progress made, said Nany Vivas, an autism support teacher for Miami-Dade schools. But Pedemonte-Forte sailed through. He never understood he was different, he said, until one day in a special ed class at Coral Reef.

“There’s something wrong with my friends,” he recalled thinking about the other special students. ‘They’re acting a little bit weird. It finally clicked and made me realize, ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t want to end up like them. I want to be meant for more than this.’ “

In 2002, he enrolled at American Intercontinental University in Weston, taking summer sessions and graduating in just over three years. Three days a week, his mother and siblings drove him 50 miles to school from Homestead, rising sometimes at 4:30 a.m. to beat rush hour. While he studied computers and art, Pedemonte waited in the student lounge so he knew she was near, she said.

On Friday, Pedemonte-Forte headed north again to walk in graduation ceremonies. Pedemonte packed a hand towel to mop her tears. The milestone march, in black cap and gown, marked more than the end of an education.

“Maybe I don’t really need school to learn a little bit more,” the young man said. “I just want to be treated as I treat everyone else. And at the same time, I want to be loved as I love everyone else.”