‘The Lost Girls’ by Apoorva Mandavilli
Critical Analysis by Yuli Atta
Market/ Audience
“The Lost Girls” also known as “The Invisible
Women With Autism” was first published in The
Atlantic and is written for an online audience, judging from its short
paragraphs which can fit on a smartphone’s screen. It is targeted at people
interested in autism and more specifically, autism in girls. Its aim is to inform
the reader about the condition and give awareness of the fact that autism in
girls is different than autism in boys.
Style/ Genre and Summary Description
This is a research piece featuring autism in females
and the condition itself. It explores the case of Maya, who was misdiagnosed
multiple times until she was finally diagnosed with autism at the age of 21. It
shows what most autistic girls go through before getting the right diagnosis
and how much different they are than the boys with the same mental condition. Additionally,
it provides the reader with research information and statistics which support
the points made by the author. On top of that, this piece gives the reader two
more cases of autism in girls that, in contrast to Maya’s, show the struggles
of women, who have been diagnosed with autism at an earlier age.
Subject/Themes
In her piece, Apoorva Mandavilli has
explored most of the symptoms autistic girls have and has emphasised that not all of them, who are on the
spectrum, get diagnosed on time or even at all. “It took 10 years, 14
psychiatrists, 17 medications and 9 diagnoses before someone finally realized
that what Maya has is autism.” This is just a small example of what women with
autism have to go through. “It’s the long list of
diagnoses Maya collected before she was 21, from borderline personality
disorder to agoraphobia to obsessive-compulsive disorder, that begin to hint at
how little we understand autism in women.” In most cases, one does not simply suffer from
autism alone, it’s followed by several mental conditions which are taken for
normal in autistic boys but can cause misdiagnoses in females with autism. “But
these were just expressions of the autism that was there for anyone to see had
they looked closer. “It’s all secondary to the Asperger’s,” says Maya, now 24.” Moreover, the author successfully supports her
statements with statistics, quotes from professionals and her interviews with
autistic women and their parents, making her piece more trustworthy. ““Clinically,
my general impression is that young girls with autism are different [from
boys], but it has been very hard to show that in any kind of a scientific way,”
says Catherine Lord,
director of the Center for Autism and the Developing Brain at Weill Cornell
Medical College in New York City.”
The research done for this piece proves that the misdiagnoses of girls on the
autistic spectrum is an existing and valid problem.
Voice
The overall voice of this long-form piece is
very academic. It sounds authoritative which helps the reader believe the
information given about autism. By supporting the author’s statements with
quotes from professionals along with their research, and people on the
spectrum, she has made her piece authentic and trustworthy because the
professionals’ opinions back up the author’s statements. Maya’s voice can be
distinguished through her quotes. In the beginning, for example, we have mostly
the authors’ words which set up Maya’s picture. They build up the reader’s
opinion of an autistic girl who is slightly different than boys but not too
much and when the readers are finally introduced to her, the picture shatters,
the stereotype that people on the autism spectrum aren’t good with words is in
contrast with Maya’s voice. ““You can see by meeting with me that
I’m quite chatty and that people wouldn’t guess that I have Asperger’s.”” However, not all autistic females can speak for themselves like Maya
does. Lula and Leigh are perfect examples of that. In the piece, we don’t see
any of their voices put on paper because Lula is an 11-year-old child who is
just growing and learning how to deal with her condition, while Leigh is a
28-year-old “nonverbal woman with
autism”. This serves to
show the reader that a child cannot advocate for herself and that’s why
her mother does in her stead. The same
goes for Leigh however, her case is a little different since she is legally an
adult but she cannot speak for herself. The lack of quotes for both of these
females shows their lack of voice in society as well.
Space/Place
Due to the way it’s written, the piece can
perfectly show the sense of place. It uses a separation type of narrative; the
story begins with Maya and her case, then it is interrupted by some statistics
and is continued after that, followed by several more interruptions. After the
part about her overdose, her story is paused, leaving the reader in suspense,
maybe wondering if Maya survived or not. After that, the reader is introduced to
Lula’s and Leigh’s cases, broadening the reader’s view on the topic, expanding
the space in this piece. It’s followed by some more statistics again and ends
with Maya’s story. However, the structure isn’t the only way in which the sense
of place is represented here. Through Maya’s quotes and Lula’s and Leigh’s
experiences, it gets clear that these autistic girls struggle to find their
place in the world because of how different they are. “By
the time she was 8, she was bullied so much at school that she became sick with
anxiety every Sunday night.”
In contrast to Maya’s case with
the bullying, Lula’s is a bit different, although the overall reason for them
to struggle with finding their place in the world is the same, socialising. “Lula
feels any social rejection acutely. She has memorized the birthdays of all of
her friends but knows she is only invited to two parties a year.”
Literary/Narrative strategies
This is a very good example of a storytelling
about a person, which also has a backstory narrative. By starting the piece
with numbers, something Maya loves, it shows not only a glimpse of her world,
but of her condition as well. People on the autistic spectrum are known for
their special interests which makes them experts in certain areas were they
books or numbers. “It took 10 years, 14 psychiatrists, 17 medications and 9
diagnoses before someone finally realized that what Maya has is autism.”
Moreover, in the beginning, there are no
quotes directly from Maya. At first, the author tells about her with her own
words and by quoting her mother and when she finally quotes Maya, it shows her
voice. After a while of telling Maya’s story, the author pauses and gives
statistics, information and quotes from professionals, which prove that the
piece’s subject is a valid and existing problem. Maya’s symptoms, signs an
struggles additionally contextualise it. The author doesn’t only support her
own statements with professionals’ opinions but she also uses Maya’s quotes to
confirm that the given information is true.
As aforementioned, this is a backstory
narrative, the piece starts by telling Maya’s story from a very early age,
describing what she has went through and every now and then the author pauses
it, by giving statistics and professionals’ opinions, contextualizing and
proving that she is making a valid point. However, it also resembles a
branching narrative in which the story goes in many different directions but
eventually, it all comes back to one point, Maya’s story. Her positive word at
the end gives hope to the reader.
Conclusion
“The Lost Girls” is a research long-form
piece whose point is to educate the reader about the overlooked and misunderstood
autistic girls, giving information about the condition in females. By using
backstory narrative, it manages to show what women on the spectrum go through
on a daily basis and their struggles with finding their place in the world.
Bibliography:
MANDAVILLI,
Apoorva. 2015. The Lost Girls.
Available at: https://www.spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/the-lost-girls/ [accessed 08 December 2018]
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