“It has never been a better time to have autism”

Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre, University of Cambridge, and author of Autism: The Facts (1994), of Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind (1997), and of The Essential Difference: The Truth about the Male and Female Brains (2003), is optimistic—-auptimistic?—about the prospects for autistic persons and for autism in 2007, as noted in the January 1st Times Online:

I remain optimistic that for a good proportion of them [people with autism], it has never been a better time to have autism. Why? Because there is a remarkably good fit between the autistic mind and the digital age. For this new generation of children with autism, I anticipate that many of them will find ways to blossom, using their skills with digital technology to find employment, to find friends, and in some cases to innovate.

Baron-Cohen’s statement is his answer to the question “What are you optimistic about,” which was posed to him and some of the other “world’s best scientific minds” by Edge.org.

On the one hand I cannot but agree with Baron-Cohen. Had my son Charlie been born in a previous generation, he would probably have been institutionalized, might never have talked or even learned how to communicate, would have been labeled “MR,” would have been thought hopeless. Charlie has been able to learn thanks to highly specialized teaching which looks first and foremost at his individual needs. Certainly our understanding that autism is not psychogenic—that bad parenting does not cause autism—is an advance. I do think our society understands autism better, identifes autism better, sees autism better, and this may be a reason why figures for the prevalence of autism have increased.

But, and this is my view, I also think that we are only starting to understand better and that we have a long, long way to go. Just because we can better diagnose children with autism does not mean that we know how best to help them. And, even when we think we know how best to help autistic persons, it is not at all the case that every autistic child and person receives the education, programs, and other services that might best help her or him achieve their fullest potential. Families with more economic resources are simply able to pay for more—therapists, private programs, specialists and more—for their children: Education for autistic children varies from state to state, county to county, town to town, even school to school, and is as varied as the autism spectrum itself.

And on the other hand, the very science and scientific advances that Baron-Cohen lauds carry with them the possibility of something like a prenatal genetic test for autism, or a blood test for autism in infants. Might such tests not portend an “end”—a “cure“—for autism if expecting parents decide not to have an autistic child who would be eugenically aborted?

Baron-Cohen underlines the “remarkably good fit between the autistic mind and the digital age”: In our increasingly digitalized, internet and technology-centric culture, it might well be an advantage to be autistic. The internet has been the hugest of boons to the families of autistic children by making it possible for parents (I am one such parent) to connect with each other all over the USA and all over the world, and with autistic persons. The internet has also made it possible for parents to find out information about the latest research on autism and on the latest treatments from one’s house—though the downside, one might say, is that one encounters almost too much information (and not all of it sound and some potentially misleadling) about autism and especially about treatments on the internet. Autism Diva noted that “it doesn’t take that much editing to make an autistic kid look normalish for a few seconds at a time on a video, just as selective editing can make an autistic child look like a total monster”: With so much information about autism available so readily, parents have a lot to discern.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say there has never been a better time to have autism, but we still have a lot of work—a lot of understanding—to do.

And now that it is a New Year—-2007—-it is time to get started, right now.