Rose Donovan
Rose Donovan started her journalism career as an investigative reporter at a newspaper in Sarasota, Florida. She moved with her husband to Washington, D.C., where she spent six years as a reporter and editor for a chain of daily newspapers in the Northern Virginia and Maryland suburbs. She veered away from the newspaper business for a stint as a reporter for a daily education newsletter, but found she missed the newspaper life.
After her first child was born, Rose scaled back to part-time work, copy editing business stories at The Washington Post for the next decade, while having two more babies. She took a break when all three children were in elementary school and her youngest son, Reilly, was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome, and later, autism spectrum disorder. While raising her children, she did a variety of volunteer work, including editing PTA newsletters at three different schools.
With all three children out of the nest, she is embarking on the next chapter of her life, writing and advocating on autism issues.
Reilly comes home from his first year away at postsecondary school this week.
You can't help but notice that April is Autism Awareness Month. We're urged by Autism Speaks to “light it up blue” in support.
They danced like no one was watching. With abandon. And exuberance. And energy. And joy.
We're winding down Reilly's spring break as I write. It's been a good week. I haven't accomplished much except to attend to his social and laundry needs.
I read with interest a recent study finding that young adults on the autism spectrum have less access to health care transition services than do other special needs populations.
After I wrote my first installment of “Life of Reilly,” I started to worry—about Reilly reading it.
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Our family originally qualified for Supplementary Security income for Cody when he was four years old. I was a single mother, not working at the time and my husband, Bill,
At present, I’m not a parent. I don’t have a son or daughter of my own, but if ever I do, I have a very specific item at the top of my parenting to-do list.
When I was very young, I remember using the telephone in my parents’ house to call a home shopping network in an attempt to get a pretty-looking umbrella.
Part I of a two-part series on living as an autistic adult in rural America.
I jumped right into the midst of the game, becoming a Hunter/Warrior version of myself, looking for the silver bullet that would magically make him “normal.”
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