The mission of the Autism Women's Network is to provide effective supports to autistic females of all ages through a sense of community, advocacy and resources.
Jessica Sergeant is a 31 year old living in Ontario with a Masters in Business Administration degree and is currently in the professional accounting certification program. She is passionate about travelling and visiting foreign countries. Since learning about her Asperger’s Syndrome, she is determined and on a mission to raise more awareness about this neurological [...]
Mika Woods is a 21 year old living in California with goals of becoming an Archaeologist. Her hobbies include knitting, reading, watching movies and listening to music. She desires to draw upon her personal experiences in order to help create unique educational and employment resources for individuals on the autism spectrum.
Cynthia Parkhill is a newspaper editor and columnist working in Northern California who has recently returned to school to pursue a library degree. She and her husband share their home with one loved cat. My name is Cynthia Parkhill and I learned at age 39 that I am on the autism spectrum. When I was [...]
My name is Annie Hussey and I am a 23 year old university student, professional speaker and mentor from Barrie, Ontario Canada. I have been speaking since the age of sixteen for school boards and organizations across the province. As well, I also serve as a mentor and life coach to several young adults on the spectrum.
Lynne Soraya works for a Fortune 500 company in the Midwest, where she has learned to harness her unique mix of aspie talents to build a successful career. In her spare time, she blogs for Psychology Today magazine, as well as very sporadically at her personal blog “The Aspie Life” (http://aspielife.blogspot.com/). What is the value [...]
By Melanie Yergeau
This fall, for the first time, I’m teaching a college course on autism — a special topics in literature course with 30 students. While, officially speaking, I’ve been planning this class since February, literally speaking, I’ve been planning this class my whole life. It’s a class that excites me a great deal, but it also has, only three days into fall term, made me physically sick with anxiety. [Read more..]
By Hannah
I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 13. Until that point I was just the maths-absorbed geeky girl who never had friends. Oh, and who played the piano with a level of emotion that was otherwise not displayed in her being. [Read more...]
By Jane Strauss
How can I write abut half a century lived under false pretenses, as either “normal” or “mentally ill” when I am actually “none of the above”? I’m a midlife autistic woman with three daughters and two sons on the spectrum. When I was young, in a large East Coast city, there was no talk of autism and it was not a word that entered anyone’s mind when a child was having problems fitting in. [Read more...]
By Barbara Protopapa
My name is Barbara Protopapa and I’m in my late thirties with high-functioning autism. My diagnosis came at age two when very little was known about autism. My mom said that I was born with autism. Before and even after I was diganosed, my parents were told that I was and always would be profoundly mentally retarded and never speak or live a productive and independent life. Specifically, doctors told my parents to institutionalize me. [Read more...]
By Cheryl Vazquez-Cheatham
I learned I had autism shortly after my 24 birthday.
I had recently run into a high school crush whom I would stare at awkwardly from afar even though we were technically friends. I was well known as the odd one amongst my corillo, the group I hung out with in high school. We were the rockers, devil worshipers with black nails, or so everyone whispered behind our backs. But I wasn’t really a part of the group, I was just too “scary” to hang out with anyone else.
