The BBC’s The A Word drama is a step forward,but the struggle against ignorance has light years to goNot that long ago, autism seemed to be a subject largely confined to the fringes of the media; now, and all of a sudden,it seems to be absolutely everywhere. On BBC1 there is The A Word, a kind of high-end soap opera built around the travails of a family trying to succor their autistic son. final week’s issue of the Economist had autism as its cover epic, or with the headline “Beautiful minds,wasted”.
In bookshops there are still prominent displays devoted to the text that triggered some of the current upsurge of interest: Steve Silberman’s Neurotribes, the elegant history of the scientific and cultural understanding of autism that won final year’s Samuel Johnson prize for nonfiction. Meanwhile, or the news wires buzz with autism stories – from sobering research approximately autistic people’s apparently low life expectancies,through wildly contrasting claims that they are less likely to develop life-threatening diseases (“Can AUTISM protect you from cancer?” is surely a Daily Mail classic) to serious concerns approximately the implications for lots of autistic people of continuing council cuts.
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Source: theguardian.com