Autistic Mother of Three Graduates from University with First Class Honors

But even she was also surprised and pleased to find she had achieved the highest mark on the Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology course and also won one of only five Wellcome Trust Studentship Bursaries to study a Masters in Health Care Ethics and Law.

"My result wasn't an alternative to a poorer but okay result, it was actually the only way I could have completed it at all," Karen, 34, explains. "There is a fine line between first class degree and complete failure for me, and a number of times I have teetered on the edge. Only the support of significant people in my life, including my autistic friends, my Disability Support Officer Bryan Coleman, National Autistic Society advocate Norman Darwen and personal tutor Liz Sheffield at the University, kept me from failing completely.

"If I get it done at all, I do well, but not getting it done or falling apart were significant risks."

Karen has had a long journey to graduation. Born in Canada, she was believed to be severely autistic and mentally retarded. Unable to speak properly until six years old, she was re-'diagnosed' as gifted at eight. She was bullied throughout her school career until, at 16, she won a scholarship to attend a private school where "bullying just was not tolerated and I didn't have to hide how smart I was because intelligence was admired rather than shunned."

But without a proper diagnosis and thus support for her Asperger's, and with family problems to contend with, she failed to apply for university and fell apart when she had to leave the routine and security of school. Several tough years followed in which she was hospitalized with depression, got pregnant with her first daughter Kendra then fought to get her back when they took her into care.

At 23, she was finally re-diagnosed properly with high functioning autism. She also met her British husband online, moved to Britain to be with him and had two more daughters, Antonia and Erin. When Antonia was a baby, she passed an access course for university and--after a long battle with her support worker for assistance--filled in her UCAS form. Karen recalls: "She thought I should learn simple things like how to clean my house, but I am much better at this."

...Karen had much to overcome due to her Asperger's. Sensitive senses and need for predictability made her two-hour commute from Northwich to Manchester on unreliable trains that screeched as they passed over railway line points an ordeal. Once in lectures, she struggled to concentrate on the words she would have to write up afterwards--being unable to listen and make notes--as speakers buzzed, microphones sounded feedback and fluorescent lights flickered. She also struggled to work in noisy labs where students had to form and work in groups.

"Sometimes it took everything I had just to endure the hour until I could escape," she says.

Karen founded and chaired the organizing committee for Autscape, an organization of autistic people who run an annual conference for autistic people in the UK, for which she won second place in the University's Student Volunteer of the Year awards. She also gave autism training presentations across Europe.

Karen succeeded, as she knew she could, in part thanks to the support of staff at the University, her friends and family, and her classmates.

"So much of my life has been focused on what I can't do and now I am in a place where I am good at something. I feel proud and terrified and amazed. I made it."