Nearly seventy-five years ago, Donald Triplett of Forest, Mississippi became the first child diagnosed with autism. This book tells the extraordinary story of the world his diagnosis created. It is a riveting human drama that takes us across continents, and through some of the great social movements of the twentieth century.
The history of autism is, above all, the story of families fighting for a place in the world for their children. It is the story of women like Ruth Sullivan, who rebelled against a medical establishment that blamed "refrigerator mothers" for causing autism; of fathers who pushed scientists to dig harder for treatments; of parents who forced public schools to accept their children. But many others played starring roles too: doctors, like Leo Kanner, who pioneered our understanding of autism; scientists who sparred over how to treat autism; and those with autism, like Temple Grandin and Ari Ne'eman, who explained their inner worlds and championed a...