'A very devastating feeling': Local parent discusses being a parent to an autistic child

'A very devastating feeling': Local parent discusses being a parent to an autistic child

Editor’s note: This is one installment in a series exploring the truths of living with autism, from the perspective of autistic people and their families and friends. Today, we talk to a parent who shares his struggles with his neurodivergent…

RFK Was Right: Severe Autism Can Be Devastating

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on April 16, 2025. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images.)Last Thursday, at a press conference announcing the CDC’s new autism prevalence rates—1 in 31 kids affected, up from 1 in 36 two years ago—HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. described “kids who will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unass…