A companion article focuses on the careers of autistic adults.

Marina Sarris

Date Revised: March 9, 2025

The call from the day care center interrupted Emily Ransom’s workday. Her toddler, Kash, could not calm down, the day care worker explained. Ransom needed to pick him up.

Ransom, a secretary, had no choice but to leave work when that happened, as it often did. Her husband could not help. It was more difficult for him to leave work suddenly because he is a police detective.

Ransom’s supervisor reprimanded her for the absence. “I just kept getting written up for leaving. It got to the point where I had to quit my job because it just wasn’t feasible for me to stay,” Ransom says. Shortly afterward, her son was diagnosed with autism, which helped explain his struggles at day care.

Ransom traded in her work commute for driving Kash to an autism therapy center an hour away from their home. She is one of many people whose jobs and career paths changed after having a child with autism.

According to research, parents of children with autism are less likely to be employed than parents whose children have a different health condition, or no health conditions at all.^1,2 In a study of families with one autistic child, 55 percent of parents said that they reduced their work hours or quit a job.³

Among parents who are employed, those with autistic children earn less — and work fewer hours — than parents who do not have an autistic child.^1,2 They are more likely to be late to work, to be interrupted at work, and to leave work early so they can manage the care of their child on the spectrum.¹

More than half of children with autism live in low-income households. That is a larger proportion than children with no “special health care needs,” according to a 2020 National Autism Indicators Report.⁴

The careers of mothers are most affected,^2,5 especially those whose children have moderate to severe needs for support.⁶

Most day care and after-school programs are not designed for autistic children and teens with disruptive or aggressive behavior, for example.

One mother says that she could not work more than part time while her autistic son was growing up because after-school care was unavailable. “Finding someone to take care of your 14-year-old, violent boy is hard,” she explains. Aggression is relatively common in children and youth on the spectrum.

That mother, Ransom, and other parents in the SPARK autism study discussed their rocky, often rewarding, career paths for this article.

Staying Home to Manage Care

Raising any child is demanding, but one with autism often requires more time — time that can affect the parent’s ability to work outside the home. Someone must take the child to doctors or therapies (speech, occupational, behavioral, or play, to name a few). There is time spent at special education meetings and handling problems at day care or school. Parents often become their child’s case manager and advocate.²

Even if parents can find suitable childcare, their employers may not understand why they sometimes arrive late or leave early to manage their children’s appointments or a behavior crisis.

Braxton Webb, a single father and autistic adult, encountered these problems after becoming a father.

Webb was working as a behavior therapist to children on the spectrum in 2023 when he adopted two brothers from the foster care system. His sons have complex medical and developmental conditions, including autism and ADHD.

One summer day, he drove his oldest son to camp before going to work. The boy, who is now 10, was having a bad day, and he tried to run into traffic near the camp. Webb kept his son safe. In the stress of that moment, he forgot to call his office and tell them he would be late.

“Calling into work was the least of my worries at that point,” recalls Webb, a former Marine Corps reservist. “My family comes before a job, 100 percent of the time.”

His employer issued a reprimand, which Webb disagreed with. “I don’t hold my tongue with anybody. That’s just the Marine in me.” He lost his job.

Now, he stays home to manage his sons’ weekly therapies and medical appointments.

Like many children on the spectrum, their behavior can be unpredictable, which can make it hard to be on time for work. “Unfortunately, employers aren’t too accommodating with that,” he says.

Webb does part-time work when he can. He works as an Uber Eats driver, and as staff at summer camps that his sons attend.

But he has another dream. He wants to open a childcare center for autistic children, one where parents do not need to worry about their children being dismissed for having autistic traits.

Helping Her Son, Helping Others

Kanesha Burch Owens would have appreciated a day care center geared to autistic children when her son, Antonio, was younger.

Owens was working and studying to be a teacher when Antonio was diagnosed with autism. Around that time, two day care centers asked him to leave due to aggressive behavior. Another day care refused to enroll him because they did not feel able to meet his needs.

She wanted her son to receive evidence-based, behavioral therapy for autism, but it was expensive and not covered by his insurance. So she decided to help him herself.

She began studying applied behavior analysis as part of a master’s degree in psychology. She incorporated what she learned into everyday life with her son, teaching him how to play, speak, and get the attention of other children without pulling on them.

Today, she uses her professional expertise — she has two master’s degrees — to help other children. She is a first-grade teacher in a public school in Georgia. She not only welcomes children with autism and developmental conditions into her classroom, she asks that they be assigned to her.

Besides her education, she also draws upon her experience as Antonio’s mother. She knows what it feels like when a teacher does not want your autistic child in their class, she says.

“It’s especially important to me that all students feel welcome and valued,” Owens says. “This drives me to ensure that every child in my classroom feels supported and included, regardless of their needs. My expertise in autism and behavior analysis has made me a strong candidate for working with students with special needs, and I take that responsibility seriously.”

A Lost Job Leads to a Career Change

Emily Ransom realized she needed a change after her son’s day care problems caused her to quit her job as a secretary. “I had to switch my career and do something that was more flexible,” she says.

She returned to school to study behavior analysis and special education, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees. She also had a second child, a daughter, who was diagnosed with autism.

She found more flexibility when she became a registered behavior consultant for children with developmental conditions in Indiana. “I go into homes and help families that are having challenging behaviors find ways to work through them.”

“I need to be able to leave work if the kids need me or if I need to take one to therapy,” she says. “The nice part about my job is that I make my own schedule.” And she helps other families like hers, at the same time.

Interested in joining SPARK? Here’s what you should know.

Photo credit: iStock

References

1. Lynch F.L. et al. Autism Res. 16, 642-652 (2023) PubMed
2. Cidav Z. et al. Pediatrics 129, 617-623 (2012) PubMed
3. Kinnear S.H. et al. J. Autism Dev. Disord. 46, 942-953 (2016) PubMed
4. Anderson K. et al. National Autism Indicators Report: Children on the autism spectrum and family financial hardship. Philadelphia, PA: Drexel University (2020)
5. Liao X. and Y. Li CNS Spectr. 25, 468-474 (2020) PubMed
6. Brekke I. et al. Matern. Child Health J. 28, 1707-1715 (2024) PubMed