By Susan Hickman
Estimated read:  2:39 min
Image:  The Autism Story by Dr. June Pimm
Publisher:  Fitzhenry & Whiteside, Limited

After Dr. June Pimm turned 70, never giving a thought to her age, she went on to enjoy another 25 years as a psychologist for the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB).

Pimm, who retired this past summer at the age of 95, has had a long fulfilling career in developmental psychology. Her first quasi-retirement, in 2000, lasted only a couple of weeks before she was approached by the OCDSB to help evaluate children with developmental issues.

She and her husband had just returned from Florida, where they had lived for more than 20 years and where Pimm had a private practice and was associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Miami School of Medicine. Already well into her seventies, she thought she would settle into retirement upon her return to her hometown of Ottawa.  But once ensconced in her new role with the OCDSB, “I got to like it,” Pimm says. “It was fun. I don’t know why I ever thought of retirement.”

When a full-time position came up in OCDSB’s psychology department, Pimm applied and began a whole new career that spanned her seventies and eighties as psychology coordinator of the board’s Autism Initiative, creating and implementing innovative approaches to autism.

“A lot of women of my generation never worked other than as volunteers,” Pimm says. “But I had a lot of opportunities because I chose to pursue a degree in developmental psychology and this work was in high demand all my life. I’ve had a blissful life. It couldn’t have been better if I’d ordered it.

After completing a bachelor’s degree and a master’s in psychological science at McGill, Pimm earned Carleton University’s first doctoral degree in the arts, in developmental psychology, then started working as a psychologist with the OCDSB. There she established the first public school classroom for “emotionally disturbed” children.

Over her career, Pimm has had the opportunity to study with the greats in her field, such as Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, who is known for his research in child development. Piaget’s influence caused Pimm to adopt the developmental model she considers the best approach to understanding autism.

During her time in Florida in the 1980s and 1990s, Pimm headed a project on depression in coronary bypass patients and co-authored two books on the results, one of which was aimed at helping patients deal with the stress of heart surgery. At the University of Miami School of Medicine, Pimm worked in neonatology, monitoring the development of low birthweight infants.

But it is Pimm’s commitment to the issue of autism that has kept her active in her field. She did the majority of her research on autism over the past 15 years and wrote The Autism Story, published in 2014, in her late eighties, specifically for parents and teachers. While she has now retired, she continues to work with the clinical team in one way or another. And she is planning to continue her research on child development and to write a memoir covering her life along with the history of psychology.

Pimm admits she is “astonished” that the school board “let me stay for so long. They never questioned my age.” She never questioned her age either. “I never thought of age as a limit.”