Understanding Autism: Parents, Doctors, and the History of a Disorder

Author:   Chloe Silverman
Publisher:   Princeton University Press
ISBN:  

9780691150468


Pages:   352
Publication Date:   27 November 2011
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable   Availability explained
The supplier advises that this item is temporarily unavailable. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out to you.

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Understanding Autism: Parents, Doctors, and the History of a Disorder


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Overview

Autism has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years, thanks to dramatically increasing rates of diagnosis, extensive organizational mobilization, journalistic coverage, biomedical research, and clinical innovation. Understanding Autism, a social history of the expanding diagnostic category of this contested illness, takes a close look at the role of emotion--specifically, of parental love--in the intense and passionate work of biomedical communities investigating autism. Chloe Silverman tracks developments in autism theory and practice over the past half-century and shows how an understanding of autism has been constituted and stabilized through vital efforts of schools, gene banks, professional associations, government committees, parent networks, and treatment conferences. She examines the love and labor of parents, who play a role in developing--in conjunction with medical experts--new forms of treatment and therapy for their children. While biomedical knowledge is dispersed through an emotionally neutral, technical language that separates experts from laypeople, parental advocacy and activism call these distinctions into question.Silverman reveals how parental care has been a constant driver in the volatile field of autism research and treatment, and has served as an inspiration for scientific change. Recognizing the importance of parental knowledge and observations in treating autism, this book reveals that effective responses to the disorder demonstrate the mutual interdependence of love and science.

Full Product Details

Author:   Chloe Silverman
Publisher:   Princeton University Press
Imprint:   Princeton University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 3.00cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.595kg
ISBN:  

9780691150468


ISBN 10:   069115046
Pages:   352
Publication Date:   27 November 2011
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable   Availability explained
The supplier advises that this item is temporarily unavailable. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out to you.
Language:   English

Table of Contents

"Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Love as an Analytic Tool 1 Part One Chapter 1: Research Programs, ""Autistic Disturbances,""and Human Difference 29 Chapter 2: Love Is Not Enough: Bruno Bettelheim, Infantile Autism,and Psychoanalytic Childhoods 61 Chapter 3: Expert Amateurs: Raising and Treating Children with Autism 93 Interlude: Parents Speak: The Art of Love and the Ethics of Care 125 Part Two Chapter 4: Brains, Pedigrees, and Promises: Lessons from the Politics of Autism Genetics 141 Chapter 5: Desperate and Rational: Parents and Professionals in Autism Research 167 Chapter 6: Pandora's Box: Immunizations, Parental Obligations,and Toxic Facts 197 Conclusion: What the World Needs Now: Learning About and Acting on Autism Research 229 Notes 237 Bibliography 313 Index 329"

Reviews

Autism remains a contested condition, and given the steep rise in research, diagnosis rates and media coverage, the debate is set to run and run. Science historian Chloe Silverman gives a balanced, sensitive social history of autism that unflinchingly covers many controversial byways. She explores the theory and biomedical advances, and how gene banks, schools and autism organizations have enriched understanding--augmented by parents of children with autism, whose experiences have informed and inspired much research. -- Nature


For Chloe Silverman, 'understanding autism' means understanding how autism has become a diagnostic category and why for some people, in autism advocacy groups for example, it isn't a pathology at all but just a different way of seeing the world... Silverman's remarkable book is a testimony to the difference parents of autistic children have made to the understanding of autism, and it also has things to say about the difference a parent's understanding can make to understanding many other things that children suffer from. -- Adam Phillips, London Review of Books Autism remains a contested condition, and given the steep rise in research, diagnosis rates and media coverage, the debate is set to run and run. Science historian Chloe Silverman gives a balanced, sensitive social history of autism that unflinchingly covers many controversial byways. She explores the theory and biomedical advances, and how gene banks, schools and autism organizations have enriched understanding--augmented by parents of children with autism, whose experiences have informed and inspired much research. -- Nature Comprehensive, well annotated, and fascinating to read, Understanding Autism will appeal to readers from a broad variety of disciplines. Silverman provides an honest and refreshing perspective on encouraging dialogue about a condition that will likely continue to be in the public spotlight for decades to come. -- Science Silverman provides a very good account of autism; knowledgeable readers will find themselves nodding along with the details. The author excellently portrays the relationship of autism with its social history. -- Choice


Author Information

Chloe Silverman is an associate professor in the department of English at Pennsylvania State University.

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