From the Bookshelf of Science and Inquiry…

NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity

Steve Silberman,

Oliver Sacks (Foreword)

Start date: November 1, 2016

Finish date: November 30, 2016

Discussion: Book Club 2016

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 25 topics — 445 comments total

Book Club 2016

* December 2016 - Wizards, Aliens
By Betsy , co-mod · 5 posts · 69 views

last updated Jan 25, 2017 01:23AM

* November 2016 - Neurotribes
By Betsy , co-mod · 9 posts · 107 views

last updated Nov 27, 2016 08:47PM

What Members Thought

Nov 27, 2016 aPriL does feral sometimes rated it it was amazing

Shelves: academic-notations, literary, history, psychology, non-fiction

'NeuroTribes' is a well-written, deeply-researched book of history which describes the centuries of effort that has gone into developing a psychological outline of autism (still incomplete). The author, Steve Silberman, includes short biographies of likely autistic-spectrum scientists as well. In telling the story of discovery about autism and about people with autism, he also shows us readers how psychological research is generally done and that it is in its infancy. He gives valid arguments an ...more

23 likes · Like · see review

Mar 13, 2019 Charlene rated it it was amazing

Shelves: general-science

Far too often, people overuse autism, namely Aspergers, as an excuse to allow their kid to be mean to other children or to justify special treatment for their offspring -- like when they demand a disproportionate percentage of a school's budget be spent on their child, without any care that there is a finite amount of money that is supposed to be spent on all children. If their child had a real disability or even met the actual criteria for autism, as outlined in the DSM, then they should receiv Far too often, people overuse autism, namely Aspergers, as an excuse to allow their kid to be mean to other children or to justify special treatment for their offspring -- like when they demand a disproportionate percentage of a school's budget be spent on their child, without any care that there is a finite amount of money that is supposed to be spent on all children. If their child had a real disability or even met the actual criteria for autism, as outlined in the DSM, then they should receive funds to help their child receive an integrated education. However, there are parents who have no qualms about waging war with the school to drain the budget in order to serve their child more than other children, when their own child does not even meet the DSM criteria for ASD. It seems to have become a thing for extremely privileged and entitled parents to fill out self report questionnaires that overstate the issues their children are dealing with. These parents also often like to claim that vaccines harmed their children and caused their (imagined) autism. These "mommy warriors" and the dad's who support them spend so much of their time stealing money from the school budget and fighting science for a condition that their child doesn't even have. I would like to see fewer of these people in the future. Any book about autism should address the ways in which people use the diagnosis to cheat other members of society. For this reason, I am skeptical of any book that does not address the over diagnosis of autism by school officials who do not use the DSM criteria (this book did not address that). Instead they use biased and extremely subjective parent self report questionnaires. I am also skeptical of any book that makes it seem as if anyone interested in engineering, science, or anything else technical must have Aspergers or autism. This book began by suggesting that engineers *in general* have autism and that it must be something in their genes. In fact, he basically called introverts and geeks aspies. This served to strengthen stereotypes and continued to cultivate the idea that smart, tech savvy people are all on the spectrum. I was sure I would give it 3 or fewer stars. Despite this criticism, the rest of the book was so fantastic, I think it deserves at least 4 stars.

The different examples used by this author of people who likely had autism, were very well chosen. I think even people who are as annoyed as I am at the over diagnosis of autism would agree that the people he chose to highlight did indeed have full blown autism. While describing autism's history Silberman recounted a really delightful history of Henry Cavendish, who demonstrated an understanding of how physics and chemistry worked, 100 years ahead of his time -- understanding of what was later termed ohms law, understanding that hydrogen and oxygen were the atoms in water, discovering argon, his fairly accurate measurement of the density of Earth. Outstanding tribute to Cavendish! Silberman also chose to highlight my idol Dirac. This short history of Dirac was just as good as any brief discussion you can get from any book that includes Dirac, except for the short bio of Dirac in Neutrino Hunters by Ray Jayawardhana, which was exceptional.

More than who Silberman chose to include in his book was the inclusion of histories that are associated with autism. So many inclusions seem like they should have been tangents, but they ended up providing a history of autism in a much richer, detailed, and complete way than I have ever heard. Silberman's discussion of the holocaust focused on research conducted on children who were considered "idiots" and those who were simply labeled annoying was top notch and addictively readable. He included the history of gender identity "disorders" as well as the treatment of PKU to help the reader understand not only the medical aspects of autism research but also the societal aspects. Silberman also treated readers to the making of Rain Man, including a discussion of some of the real life influences and Dustin Hoffman's preparation for the role.

Another really nice aspect of this book was the difference in researchers who studied autism. Some claimed it began at birth and others recognized that people with less severe symptoms, which were only apparent around 2 years or older, were in fact also symptoms of autism (Aspergers). I think it is hard to get a clear definition of where the line should be drawn, which is partly why Aspergers was removed from the DSM. Nevertheless, it was clear that some people should have the diagnosis of ASD, even if they had less severe symptoms than people who have lost speech, beat themselves up, engage in rocking behaviors or echolalia, and the like. When discussing the differences between Aspergers and autism, Silberman also recounted the behavioral modification therapies tried over time and provided the various justifications from different researchers for their sometimes extreme methods of treatment.

All of the positive aspects of this book were so engrossing and informative, as well as told in a novel way, that it more than made up for anything that might have been left out. I enjoyed this book immensely.

...more

3 likes · Like · see review