Representing Autism: Culture, Narrative, Fascination

Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, 2009

Autistic people are empirically and scientifi cally generalized as living in a fragmented, alternate reality, without a coherent continuous self. In Part I , this book presents recent neuropsychological research and its implications for existing theories of autism, selfhood, and identity, challenging common assumptions about the formation and structure of the autistic self and autism's relationship to neurotypicality. Through several case studies in Part II , the book explores the ways in which artists diagnosed with autism have constructed their identities through participation within art communities and cultures, and how the concept of self as 'story' can be utilized to better understand the neurological differences between autism and typical cognition. This book will be of particular interest to researchers and scholars within the fi elds of Disability Studies, Art Education, and Art Therapy.

Ethos, 2010

Abstract This special issue of Ethos brings together the work of scholars from multiple disciplines including anthropology, occupational science, and education. The authors share two main goals. First, this interdisciplinary collection of articles highlights the importance of rethinking research on autism. Each article encourages movement away from dominant biomedical discourses that focus largely on symptoms to a more phenomenological and ethnographic stance that addresses experiences of living with autism. The second goal is to rethink possibilities for social interaction and participation for people with autism. In this introduction, we briefly review current biomedical accounts of autism as a disorder that affects social cognition and explore the importance of rethinking these assumptions. We suggest that this discussion is particularly well suited for psychological anthropology's concerns with the psychological and the social in an individual's experience and place in society. [autism, ethnographic research, intersubjectivity, neurodiversity, sociality]

Indian journal of mental health, 2022

The phenomenon of autism, as in known today, has a history with several vicissitudes. Contemporary students and practitioners unconnected with its history are unlikely to see the larger picture. This article seeks to outline the timeline of autism before narrowing it into various controversial themes, unresolved issues, and unanswered questions on autism. The themes revolve around the disputed construct of autism, its meaning, definition, characteristics, theories, and official classifications. Equally debated are matters related to epidemiology, causes, and treatments for autism. There is disagreement whether autism is a disorder or a difference. The claims of freaks, exceptional prodigies, and savants in autism, the role of genetics, notions of posthumous diagnosis, commercialization, and commodification of autism in the media are raised. Raising controversies can lead to constructive discussion or further reflection than attempting to answer them.

Autonomy the Critical Journal of Interdisciplinary Autism Studies, 2013

Mismeasure of Man about the use of science to justify a subordinate role for women, poor people, and black people based on an unfounded thesis that itwas natural. Twenty years ago, in her article entitled The Mismeasure of Woman, the feminist writer Carol Tavris wrote of the domination of women by men. In the light of these works concerning the apparent mismeasure of certain people, I consider the position of autistic people in the context of their relationship with the predominant (typically developing) neurotype and, more specifically, the treatment of autism as adisorder. I review current orthodox autism theory -executive functioning, the extreme male brain theory, theory of mind, and weak central coherence -as well as various newer, and arguably neglected, theories including the enactive mindhypothesis, interaction theory, and the narrative practice hypothesis. I conclude that autism has been mismeasured by a predominant neurotype medical communityand propose a synthesis of autism theory that, in my view, provides a better explanation of autism than any synthesis of orthodox theory as well as providing support for my view that autism is natural human difference.

Literature and Medicine, 2015

The article explores how normative notions of emotions and interaction are active in constructions of the categories of “human” and “animal” in different discourses about autism: scientific and autobiographical. In the scientific discourse of autistic emotionality, a deficit perspective of autism is central. The general affective deficit discourse relies on normative discursive notions of “humanity” or “human emotionality.” Thus, neurotypicals are produced as real “humans” and neurotypical emotionality as “normal” human emotionality. This human normativity is challenged in the Swedish autobiographical texts by Gunilla Gerland (b. 1963), Iris Johansson (b. 1945) and Immanuel Brändemo (b. 1980). Along with American authors of autobiographies about autism, such as Temple Grandin’s Thinking in Pictures (1995) and Dawn Prince-Hughes’ Songs of the Gorilla Nation (2004) they destabilize the categories of “human” and “animal” by identifying with nonhuman animals, describing themselves as such, or feeling disqualified as real humans.

Ethos, 2010

Abstract In psychology and allied disciplines, autism has been erroneously conceived as a disease that precludes meaningful social behavior. Anthropologists are beginning to address this problem by rejecting the narrow confines of what constitutes human social functioning, and by showing the complex ways in which autistic children and adults participate in and contribute to their societies. At the same time, anthropologists have begun to contextualize public debates about autism prevalence and etiology in historical and cultural processes. This commentary identifies two major disjunctions in contemporary public debates about autism: the first between a depersonalized form of knowledge constructed by science and a narcissistic claim for knowledge that privileges anecdotal, personal experience; the second between a “mainstream” discourse on science and a new discourse on science that explains autism in terms of environmental insults. These new environmental perspectives, especially those that concern vaccine damage, can be situated in late modernity. They mediate between a nostalgic memory of ontological certainty, trust, and authenticity and a postmodern world characterized by a loss of faith in scientific institutions. [autism, sociality, vaccines, advocacy]

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 2017

The autistic condition, as currently defined by observation and dependent on a-priori defined notions of social appropriateness, has gained prevalence of epidemic proportions worldwide. In the US, the systems that diagnose and treat the condition follow a clinical model primarily based on a psychological / psychiatric construct. Such approach leaves out bodily physiology and its sensory consequences in favor of descriptions and interpretations of observational data gathered by hand without proper scientific rigor. The clinical model thus constructed serves a fast pace system to provide recommendations for treatment that directly impact the lives of the affected individuals and their core caregiver family unit, but fails to embrace them as active members of the society at large. While limiting the potential contributions of the autistic person to our society, the current clinical model is also interfering with the scientific model and its progress, which has considerably stalled. This Chapter exposes some of the contemporary issues surrounding the complex relationships between society at large and the autistic population in the context of a psychological/psychiatric model that is not working.