A July 18th editorial by conservative thinker Thomas Sowell about the false diagnosis of autism—–it’s entitled “Rush to diagnose autism causes more harm than good“—-responds to some recently announced techniques to diagnose autism earlier in children. Sowell criticizes what he sees as the over-diagnosis of autism in young children who are really late talkers (keeping in mind that Sowell is the author of a author of a book about book about late-talking children) and decries the whole notion of the autism spectrum:
Those who diagnose children by running down a checklist of “symptoms” can find many apparently “autistic” children or …read more