![]() ![]() Maclean’s columnist Emma Teitel spoke with Silberman. Silberman’s book is not only an exhaustive history of autism itself, but a call for greater acceptance of “neurodiversity”: the radically humane idea that people process the world in different ways, and there is nothing wrong with that. We spend millions on elimination and prevention techniques, when what we should be doing, argues Silberman, is bettering the lives of autistic people and their families. Canadian rocker Neil Young suggests on his new album, The Monsanto Years, that “pesticides are causing autistic children.” According to American science journalist Steve Silberman, author of the new book NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, misconceptions about the condition stem from the ever-popular “mistaken belief that autism is a historical aberration of the modern world”-an aberration we can snuff out with specialized diets and intensive therapy. The cognitive disability-or gift, depending on whom you ask-has a long and storied history of being falsely attributed to a variety of causes, from bad parenting to vaccines to GMOs. There are few conditions less understood by the general public than autism. Steve Silberman delivers a speech at a Ted Talk. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |