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Ullr's avatar

This rings true through the documented modern history of kids we can guess would have been labeled as autistic. Stella O’Malley highly recommend the book, Neurotribes. Published in 2015. I found it helpful to understand some of the intense confusion and frustration of the early 2000’s tech geniuses in Silicon Valley whose kids seemed to have an unusually high rate of autism. The author tries to analyze cases from the 1700’s and 1800’s of kids from wealthy families that had some unusual cures tried on them. One case, after trying all sorts of discipline and cures, the family ended up sending the kid to live with a farming family who recognized that the boy really loved to count. They sent him out to hoe the fields and count the rows. Kid ended up working at a bank. The author seems to make the point over several hundred pages that autistic kids tend to be very delayed developmentally, and the non verbal and severely disabled kids tend to have rare chromosomal syndromes like Angelmans. It all got labeled as Autism. It’s been a while since I read the book, so I might be misremembering a few things.

The hardest part of the book to read was the experiments done in sanitariums in the 1950’s until 1970’s. Kids injected with LSD, all kinds of antipsychotics, worse. Sounds too familiar with the kids I know who were remarkably “weird” and then all got lured into gender medicine and antidepressants.

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Cactopus's avatar

I haven't read Neurotribes yet, but it's on my shelf partially because of how effusive Stella's recommendation was. Whenever she recommends something it makes me feel quite warm inside, she has such enthusiasm.

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Ullr's avatar

It is a tome! I admit I got 2/3 of the way through before it was due back at my library. I intend to finish it eventually. It’s also a very careful and detailed account. Very enjoyable and answered a lot of questions about the “Nazi doctor” false allegations about Hans Ausberger by a rival scientist who spaced to America. The behavioral psychologists of the 1950’s vs the environment and development approach.

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