Bumpas Interviewed in Vermont Public Story on Adults Diagnosed with Autism
Molly Bumpas, M.Ed., a clinical assistant professor of communication sciences and disorders at the University of Vermont specializing in autism spectrum disorder and part of a multidisciplinary team in the Autism Assessment Clinic within the Vermont Center for Children, Youth, and Families at UVM’s Larner College of Medicine, was interviewed by Vermont Public for a story on three Vermonters diagnosed as adults with autism.
As autism awareness has grown, so too has the rate of adult diagnoses. Bumpas says it can be challenging to have that realization, because autistic traits may have been mistaken for other disorders over the course of someone’s life, in a kind of “neurodivergent soup.”
The three Vermonters featured in this story agree that finding community has been vital—such as All Brains Belong, a clinic based in Montpelier founded by Larner Clinical Assistant Professor of Family Medicine Melissa Houser, M.D.’12—herself diagnosed with autism as an adult—that is centered on caring for neurodivergent people. One of the only practices of its kind in the country, All Brains Belong is a new model of health care delivery that provides not only medical care but also education and social connection for patients historically excluded from traditional health care settings—particularly neurodivergent people with complex chronic conditions and those who have experienced medical trauma.