Fyllig artikel om autism av Ian Hacking
Ian Hacking har skrivit en matig artikel om autism i London Review of Books. Han går igenom begreppets historia, från dess start I Österrike i början av 1900-talet, över till USA. Han går igenom möjliga orsaker. Han beskriver olika behandlingstekniker och meningsskiljaktigheter. Han beskriver operant conditioning - Applied Behavioural Analysis. Här några citat från artikeln:
--
Hour after hour, day after day, getting the children to play with each other. Repeatedly running tapes of a conversation: what is Tom saying to Maureen? Why? How does she react? Why? Today they use a computer programme: Ultimate Learning – Fun with Feelings. Nazeer does not mention that there is now a first generation of cheery looking robots intended to interact with autistic children, and save on the inevitable burn-out of many teachers.
--
We say ‘autistic spectrum’, which is not quite right, because a spectrum is a one-dimensional range. Autism ranges in at least three dimensions: language deficit, social deficit and obsession with order. We should talk of an autistic space. So, are all the individuals that we now place in this space of symptoms in the same neurobiological space?