The Dark End of the Spectrum

[jason]

CBC’s Ideas radio program is rebroadcasting the series The Dark End of the Spectrum (which you can listen to from this link):

For parents of autistic children, the realization often comes slowly. A worry, a pang, a sinking feeling when trying to play with the new baby, who seems - uninterested, even unreachable.

What could be wrong? If it is, in fact, autism, it is not the end, but the beginning of a journey.

First seen as a medical oddity, the story of autism is both fascinating and troubling. Autism was first described and named in the 1940s, in the heyday of psychoanalysis. Brilliant and charismatic doctors concluded the disorder was caused by nurture – not nature. In short, it was the parents’ fault. They were branded with the heartless label: “refrigerator mothers.”

Bernice Landry explores how our understanding of autism has taken an about-face in recent years. Scientists and an army of activist parents are beginning to make up for lost time, to shine new light on the darkest secrets of our genes.

In episode 2 we hear the story of Darius McCollum, a serial impersonator whose obsession with trains has lead him to spend much of his life in jail. Darius has been diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome, a version of autism.

Also see: Ontario failing adults with autism spectrum disorders: report from the CBC website, that was posted just this month.

Comments

[francisb.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this, I am planning to make an attempt at listening this evening.

[complicittheory.livejournal.com]

Great! It is a wonderful listen. If you have any trouble, let me know and I can get you mp3 files of it.

[roger-kuin.livejournal.com]

Asperger's is strange, all the more since one meets it much more often in daily life than real autism. Two examples (which I now realise were examples, but didn't then):
1) a student, quite brilliant (best of the year by a long chalk) who couldn't talk to me without closing her eyes tightly;
2) the then department chair who hired me at York in 1969, a kindly Englishman who interviewed me for 30 long minutes while staring fixedly into a far corner of the floor...

[complicittheory.livejournal.com]

And that counts as very mild, if it counts at all. They may both have been overwhelmed by your beauty.