:00:00. > :00:07.We will have more on those stories are at the top of the hour, but
:00:08. > :00:13.let's catch up with Mickey Higham Nick Higham --.
:00:14. > :00:18.Steve Silberman won the Samuel Johnson Prize for the best
:00:19. > :00:20.nonfiction book of the year. Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism
:00:21. > :00:25.and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently is a
:00:26. > :00:33.book about autism. From its first diagnosis in the 1930s, the prize
:00:34. > :00:38.givers called it ground-breaking and he toured a force of research. --
:00:39. > :00:57.and a tour de force. Steve Silberman, one of your
:00:58. > :01:02.starting points for this book was an idea that got about in the 90s that
:01:03. > :01:08.there was an epidemic of autism. That was erroneous, wasn't it, what
:01:09. > :01:11.there was was a change in the diagnosis, a perceived increase of
:01:12. > :01:16.the number of people with the disease, but nothing had changed, is
:01:17. > :01:22.that right? That is true. Several things happened that contributed to
:01:23. > :01:28.an epidemic. One was that the diagnosis was radically broadened to
:01:29. > :01:32.include many more people. That was intentional. It was a psychiatrist
:01:33. > :01:37.in London who herself was the mother of a profoundly disabled autistic
:01:38. > :01:41.daughter called Susie. She knew what it was like to raise such a child
:01:42. > :01:47.without support, resources, and access to special education. She did
:01:48. > :01:50.a survey in Camberwell where she started looking for autistic
:01:51. > :01:55.children to figure out what the proper level of Government provision
:01:56. > :02:00.for them would be. She saw many more children than the prevailing, very
:02:01. > :02:04.narrow and monolithic model of autism one accounted for. She
:02:05. > :02:11.basically worked behind the scenes to radically get the criteria for
:02:12. > :02:21.diagnosis. It persuaded governments on both sides of the atom and -- of
:02:22. > :02:24.the Atlantic to help people with the condition and their families. And
:02:25. > :02:30.overturned what has often been, since the first diagnosis in the
:02:31. > :02:35.1930s, a rather bleak clinical approach. They tried to cure people.
:02:36. > :02:41.It isn't something you can cure. And the treatments work often quite
:02:42. > :02:46.horrifying, frankly. That's true. It came in part because there was a
:02:47. > :02:49.prevailing theory that parents were responsible for causing autism in
:02:50. > :02:55.their children. So the recommended treatment was to remove them to
:02:56. > :03:00.institutions, to take them out of the toxic environment of the home.
:03:01. > :03:05.So they were not luxury autism awards for them to go to, they were
:03:06. > :03:11.sent to state hospitals, and psychology waltz for adults. Two
:03:12. > :03:17.generations of autistic children disappeared behind the walls. --
:03:18. > :03:21.psychology hospital wards. It was this idea of the mother who failed
:03:22. > :03:26.to love her child. Why did psychologists come up with that
:03:27. > :03:32.idea? Psychoanalysis was on the rise in the 1940s when the man who
:03:33. > :03:36.claimed to have found autism came up with that theory. He initially
:03:37. > :03:40.proposed autism as something which was inborn. But he ended up being
:03:41. > :03:45.persuaded by his colleagues that if he claimed it was inborn then there
:03:46. > :03:49.was no hope and there was no role for child psychiatrists like Lee
:03:50. > :03:54.O'Connor. They persuaded him to say it was because of bad parenting.
:03:55. > :03:57.That created an important role for the child psychiatrist which was to
:03:58. > :04:01.actually have more power than the parents and say that these children
:04:02. > :04:06.should be removed from the home and sent to an institution. He was
:04:07. > :04:11.working on developing his first diagnosis in the 1930s. At the same
:04:12. > :04:18.time there was another man doing similar work with a similarly
:04:19. > :04:21.disabled children in Vienna. Yes, he worked in the University of Vienna
:04:22. > :04:29.in the 1930s. He discovered what we now call the autism spectrum. He
:04:30. > :04:31.understood that autism was a lifelong condition that would
:04:32. > :04:38.require support from parents and teachers and the community. He had a
:04:39. > :04:42.very impressing view of autism. He also understood it was something
:04:43. > :04:48.genetic, not something caused by the parents. He had a chief
:04:49. > :04:53.diagnostician who was Jewish. In 1938 the Nazis marched into Austria
:04:54. > :04:59.annexed Austria from the German Fatherland. Like many Jews, he had
:05:00. > :05:03.to leave or die. He was rescued by Leo Connor. That was something that
:05:04. > :05:07.wasn't known until my book was published. It was always thought it
:05:08. > :05:17.was a coincidence, but in fact Leo Connor helped rescue many Jewish
:05:18. > :05:22.clinicians. He hired him, and he evaluated his first autistic
:05:23. > :05:28.patients. When he published his findings initially in Germany, he
:05:29. > :05:32.went to great pains to select Case histories as examples, what we would
:05:33. > :05:38.perhaps term high functioning autism. And there was a reason for
:05:39. > :05:45.that. At the time the Nazis were targeting, for euthanasia, any
:05:46. > :05:49.disabled children. The Nazis launched a secret euthanasia
:05:50. > :05:54.programme against disabled children and adults as a practice run for the
:05:55. > :05:56.Holocaust against the Jews. One of the things they were trying to
:05:57. > :06:02.eradicate was hereditary forms of disability. The children in the
:06:03. > :06:07.clinic became a target. He had to do what he could. He presented the most
:06:08. > :06:14.able of the children as possibly even a boom to the Reich by saying
:06:15. > :06:18.they could be good codebreakers. One of the things you tried to do in
:06:19. > :06:21.this book, one of the ways it changes our perspective, is to
:06:22. > :06:25.emphasise the fact that many autistic people are indeed highly
:06:26. > :06:32.gifted, highly intelligent, you find a lot of them in silicon valley, but
:06:33. > :06:36.the fact remains that autism can be devastating, particularly for
:06:37. > :06:42.families with autistic children. It is often a grim condition to have to
:06:43. > :06:48.live with. I do guilty -- are you guilty of glossing this like him?
:06:49. > :06:55.No. One of the main characters in the book is a child who is barely
:06:56. > :06:57.verbal. They are very profoundly disabled people in the book.
:06:58. > :07:04.Sometimes readers forget about them because they are not quoted, really.
:07:05. > :07:08.They seem to skip over them. My book represents the broad range of the
:07:09. > :07:12.spectrum, which, as you say, goes from very gifted programmers who
:07:13. > :07:16.might have a job in silicon valley, to profoundly disabled people who
:07:17. > :07:24.require assisted living for every day of their lives. What is the
:07:25. > :07:26.future for people with autism, for society and the medical
:07:27. > :07:34.profession's approach towards autism? This is demanding a place at
:07:35. > :07:39.the table when policy is set that affects their lives, such as service
:07:40. > :07:43.provision. They are also contributing the narratives of their
:07:44. > :07:46.own existence to understand autism. By hearing what autistic people go
:07:47. > :07:51.through in daily life we understand the condition of a lot better. You
:07:52. > :07:56.won the Samuel Johnson Prize last night. Pleasing for you. Does it
:07:57. > :07:59.have wider significance? What is nice is that I was the first popular
:08:00. > :08:04.science writer to win the prize in the history of the award. I am glad
:08:05. > :08:07.to open up that field. To make the point that science and literature
:08:08. > :08:14.work very well together. That is what I try to do in this book. Thank
:08:15. > :08:16.you very much, Steve Silberman.