book report: Neuro Tribes The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman

 image source: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51TeTKGUkwL.jpg

The more I read this book the feeling crept in that I was "on the spectrum"  but then the author has a section on the famous publisher, Hugo Gernsback, and the author implies that amateur radio and science fiction functioned as figurative magnets for those high functioning (Asperger's Syndrome) Autistic people.  Guess what, I can remember starting to read science fiction in 6th grade where I also developed an interest in ham radio, yikes !

Even though medicine and psychology are science based professions it often takes a hero to change diagnosis and treatment of diseases and conditions.  Consider someone like Sister Kenny developing her treatment for polio prior to the vaccines.  Without her heroism would it have ever come into use ?  A system that relies on heroes can be less than successful.  Certainly that is true of the definition / diagnosis and treatment of Autism.  Often the parents and the kids are asked to be the heroes.  Many heroes are profiled in the book along with those who function as villains.

This book is like many current books, a non-linear narrative, jumping around from the present (2012 ?) to the past and introducing a huge number of people.  All of the people are portrayed with their frailties and defects intact but also their virtues.  The movie, Rain Man, is explored.  Also Temple Grandin is profiled as probably the most famous autistic person in the US.  Oliver Sacks is mentioned throughout the book as both a clinician and as an author.

The bottom line for me:  people on the autism spectrum have always constituted a noticeable percentage of the population - and that it's really hard to say that there are more of them now than there were then.  An appropriate amount of cold water is poured on the anti-vax movement (as it relates to a cause of autism).

As with everything in modern life, children have been moved up-market, parents expect good things for their kids, not just survival - who can blame them ?

Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm