Terri Farrell is a real doer. If you asked her in her 20s or 30s if she’d be working in insurance and teaching, she would have said no. She fell into her current path when her oldest son was diagnosed with autism.
Her son Connor is now 25, but the road his mother has traversed has been anything but easy.
Conner Farrell explained autism in a simple way.
“Imagine being invited to a party but the front door is locked and you see everybody in there and you go over to the window and you can hear everything going on but you can’t connect,” he said. “So you’re at the party, but you’re not at the party,”
Terri Farrell said his explanation of being somewhere without being a part of what is happening explains a lot.
“There’s a lack of deep, meaningful friendships and social connections and relationships,” Terri Farrell said.
Trying to find resources for people with autism 23 years ago was like wandering in a vast wasteland with no services. Living in Lynnfield was helpful because it had an integrated preschool, but Terri Farrell felt that not all of the necessary services for people with autism could be relied upon from the school district.
She explained that getting an autism diagnosis didn’t result in insurance benefits. Most health plans had exclusions. If you got an autism diagnosis outside of school, the services were not covered.
“Speech, occupational therapy, physical therapy, ABA etc. were not covered,” she said.
That’s when Terri Farrell joined the battle for autism activism. She volunteered with the Autism Speaks fundraising walk and a couple years later, she was the walk’s chair. She said the walk was held at Suffolk Downs and raised almost $1 million. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino was a guest speaker and Terri Farrell had the opportunity to speak with him.
“I’m trying to pass meaningful
autism-insurance legislation,” Terri Farrell said. “Why is it that an autism diagnosis is discriminated against in health insurance?”
After working with Bradley Jones Jr., Terri Farrell’s state representative and the House minority leader, and joining forces with Advocates for Autism of Massachusetts in 2011, autism-insurance legislation was enacted in Massachusetts.
“It was parents, moms and dads, that went to legislators and said, ‘I don’t understand’ that made it all possible,” she said.
Not only does Terri Farrell work as the senior project director of the Insurance Resource Center for Autism and Behavioral Health, she also has been co-teaching a course at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center. The course is Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities, and it will be her seventh year co-teaching.
In addition, she teaches a course with Harvard Medical School called Clinical Care for Autistic Adults. The online course has video vignettes in four different modules and is a continuing-education course that is free of charge until July 2026.
“10,000 people have taken the course in 160 countries in the first year. It’s free and you’re getting continuing-education credits,” Terri Farrell said.
Along with the course, a website has been created called Adult Autism Health Resources that has all kinds of free, downloadable tools.
“It’s really comprehensive of every issue that families face when they go to the doctor,” Terri Farrell said.
Terri Farrell was designated a 2024 Commonwealth Heroine in June after being nominated by Jones.
“It was really nice to be recognized,” she said.
More information about these programs can be found at the following websites:
Insurance Resource Center for Autism and Behavioral Health: https://massairc.org/
Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities: https://shriver.umassmed.edu/programs/lend/
Clinical Care for Autistic Adults: https://cmecatalog.hms.harvard.edu/clinical-care-for-autistic-adults
Adult Autism Health Resources: https://adult-autism.health.harvard.edu/
