My post on Facebook on April 3.
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Okay, by request, a bit more on the story of what impact Hitler, Austria and the 80's had on the more recent increase in autism diagnoses.
This is a summary of a summary of part of Steve Silberman's book, Neurotribes. In the early part of the 20th century, Hans Asperger (recognize that name?) of the University of Vienna was pioneering modern research in autism, which included identifying it as a spectrum. He also identified links to high intelligence and that it is not a rare condition.
Enter Hitler. Remember how Hitler wasn't really pro-disability people? When he took over the University of Vienna, he cleaned house and appointed his own leaders. Focus was shifted to eugenics. Even Asperger's research before the takeover had begun to go "light" in order not to point the finger at a new category of people with disabilities. The impact of this shake-down lasted until the 1980's.
Oh, and did someone say something about the 80's? Remember in the 70's and 80's particularly how the tension of working moms played out? Well, with research deficit post-war on the origins of autism, people believed that autism was the result of bad parenting, especially mothers. Because mothers needed more stuff to feel guilty about.
In many ways, I think we are still in the infancy of understanding autism, knowing how to teach, parent and care for those with autism, and I think it's important to realize that we have a lot of learning to do still. There are factors involved that we really may not understand yet. In fact, today's cliff hanger is this: What does farming nectarines have to do with the brain of an autistic child? And what do mirrors tell us about how autistic kids think?
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