Article Backstories

The Before and After of my Autism Articles

I want to write about Biden’s age and inflation. I have a few disjointed thoughts rumbling around in my brain. But I’m plowing through a rough draft of an autism book, and I’m being superstitious about switching topics.

So, let me give you some back stories on articles that I wrote about autism. (My mostly complete list of articles in the mainstream press is here.)

In 2012, I was still teary about having to leave academia, so my first article for the Atlantic came at a great time. In fact, it jump started a new career. The idea for the article came about one evening, when I was trying to read scientific articles about autism. I kept hitting paywalls because I no longer had a university account. So, I wrote about it.

“Locked in the Ivory Tower” went viral thanks to the nerdy guys at Reddit, who also hate university publishing companies. While the article wasn’t about autism, it was definitely Ian-inspired.

By 2015, I was a regular contributor to the Atlantic, writing two to four articles per month on education. When researching an article about a new initiative for autism at Sesame Street, I interviewed folks at the Yale Child Study Team, who had participated in creating these videos and resources.

Of course, the fact that I was an autism mom came up during the interview. They invited me to bring Ian up to New Haven for testing. So, after the article was published, I gave them a call, and we took two days off from work and school for comprehensive testing.

They found that Ian was in the top percentile for non-verbal IQ and pattern recognition, and told us that he should be totally mainstreamed for all his classes. I came back home and had one hell of an IEP meeting.

Six years, we went back there. Ian was a mess at the time. He was extremely sick from epilepsy and the medicine and struggling to recover from the extreme isolation of the school shutdowns. This time, they said we had to focus on his social-emotional issues and lined up a therapist for us before we left the office on the second day.

We also learned that New Haven pizza is great.

My article about Ian eating alone in the school cafeteria was popular. I wrote a couple of follow up articles on it.

I wrote two articles about a Supreme Court case regarding special education services, Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District. The Supreme Court basically told school districts that they had to provide proper education services for disabled kids. The old standard — slightly better than nothing — wasn’t good enough.

Both articles did very well. I think they were on the “most read list” for several days for the Atlantic. I’ve lost track of all the citations to these articles in law review journals. It was a huge decision, but did I see any difference in how schools managed our services? Did my kid’s education suddenly improve over night? Nope. No difference.

Just a two weeks after schools shutdown, I wrote an article predicting that the shutdowns was going to be terrible for disabled students. I would write a dozen other articles predicting a massive negative impact of school shutdowns on students, but couldn’t get them published anywhere. So, I started this newsletter to publish those stories.

After the Atlantic shutdown its education channel, I wrote several articles for The 74, including one about online groups for autism moms. When I was doing this research, I signed up for several Facebook autism pages for families of severely challenged children. I became radicalized by the sheer trauma experienced by some families in this country, particularly those with limited resources.

I continued to follow those pages even after I finished the article. What happened to those families during the pandemic is a shameful moment in our nation.

In 2021, I wrote my second essay for HuffPost essay section. This one was about Ian’s prom. This article went super viral. I think it was on the top five most read articles for Apple News on the day it was published. While it didn't lead to a book deal, Sinead O’Connor retweeted it and sent me a smiling face emoji. RIP Sinead.

Journalism, including all its varieties from traditional to essays to opinion pieces, is an interactive activity. It’s not just typing words into a computer. Writing something good involves talking to people, learning from them, forming connections with them. Actually, the only way to write a good article is to interview people. Even when I think I know a topic inside and out, my final product is ALWAYS different from the proposal. Conversations make me smarter.

After I submit a first draft, the next set of interactions comes with the editor. Sometimes that chemistry is good. Other times not. But those editors, even the unfriendly ones, taught me how to write for a mainstream audience. It was a no-nonsense, often brutal education, but highly effective.

Not only is an editor making sure that I have a great lede, but they’re making sure that every fact can be backed up. No sloppy statements or loose statistics allowed.

After publication, then I’m interacting with the audience who find me through social media and other places. Those interactions can be heart warming, like an emoji from Sinead O’Connor. Other comments leave scars. After that same article, one guy told me to drown my son in a bathtub. So, some good, some bad.