Three Generations of Autism Advocates

Autism has always been a part of Alison Singer’s life. When she was a little girl in the 1970s, she would visit her older brother, who has non-verbal autism with a cognitive disability, at the now-infamous Willowbrook State School on Staten Island. “I just remember hearing a lot of screaming and moaning,” she recalls. “I hated it.” By the time Alison’s first daughter, Jodie, was born with severe disabilities in the late 1990s, society and autism science had evolved, thanks to parent-activists...