Doubts about the book "In a Different Key"?

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The Doctor and the Nazis - John Donvan and Carol Zucker

the article does seem imply asperger likely knew what jekelius was up to

I spent an hour today at my local Barnes & Noble Booksellers cafe reading the end-note citations about Dr. "Slappy" Lovaas and Hans Asperger. The book, In a Different Key, was pretty much as has been reported by John Elder Robison and others.

However, I remain surprised that the authors, John Donvan and Caren Zucker, wrote nothing I read that criticized Slappy (except to mention that he also used cattle-prod electrocution as his own form of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) with his childhood patients), but spent an extraordinary amount of time reciting all of Hans Asperger's bad actions while minimizing his good actions.

The authors also seemed to me to rely on the journalists' trick of using "fractional" "quotation marks" to "suggest subliminally" that certain "claims" were "suspect." I would have appreciated their opinions more if they had simply stated them as editorial narrative and claimed them as their own without ascribing them to phantom commentators.

While I am discussing the journalistic feel of the book, it seemed to me that, as journalists are taught to do, much of the narrative was written for a third-grade audience. The book felt to me as rambling and aimless as a Sunday news round-up where ever factoid gets mentioned, dissected and discussed regardless of it influence in the overall direction of the book.

Compared with Steve Silberman's book, NeuroTribes, Donvan and Zucker appear desperately to want to leave out nothing; unless what gets left out includes a little more evidence of Kim Peek's life which gets reduced to less than a single page of his involvement with the 1988 movie Rain Man. While Kim wasn't, ultimately, autistic, he served during his life as what the whole planet believed was a good model of autism. None of that was described.

Silberman's writing raced from autistic people, to diagnosticians, to researchers, to politicians and government leaders, and back again. It captivated. In a Different Key simply doesn't. In my opinion, it lectures, it takes the reader on wild goose chases, and it ends up with the world's largest forest where the trees are missed completely.

One surprisingly interesting and entertaining part of the book is its description of our own Alex Plank. I never knew about Alex's early childhood, and only a little about his profession(s). So, it would appear that the book does give its readers a view of autism as it is today, even if what it was almost a century ago gets tortured.

At least, that is my opinion of a one-hour reading of keys points. I ended up seeing little that appealed to me, considering the difficulty it enjoyed trying to out-perform Silberman's NeuroTribes. Because of this, I didn't buy the book.

Lovaas took Applied Behavioral Analysis to an extreme.

Discrete Trial Training! 40 hours of this---any kid would go crazy!

Very interesting conversation. Thank you, gents.

Came across this on my lunch hour. http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-an ... -the-nazis

Part of the publicity tour for In a Different Key, no doubt, but I thought it was well written and easy to follow.

Steve Silberman has commented on the allegations against Asperger. . Silberman claims that Herwig Czech the source for the allegations against Asperger in the book did not reply to numourous requests to make his information available to Silberman

Was Dr. Asperger A Nazi? The Question Still Haunts Autism

According to Simon Baron Cohen Czech is a lecturer at the Medical University of Vienna and research fellow at the Documentation Center of the Austrian Resistance. According to Silberman

was Asperger a member of the nazi party and did he understand what was going on a spiegelgrund are two different questions.it was always good for ones survival to be a member of the party at that period.

Herbert Von Karajan was a member of the nazi party then married a jewish woman at the wars end.

but did Hans Asperger know and agree with the goings on at spiegelgrund is a different story

Another question is did he knowingly sacrifice some to save others or was his thinking like every other Nazi?Donovan and Zucker claim that bright people with disabilities such as blindness were not killed but given what would be described today as special education because they were still thought to be potential valuable members of society. If true that would put his saying in his semi famous 1938 presentation to Nazi elite that Autistics can be valuable members of society while seemingly sending other autistics to death well within Nazi Eugenics thinking.

Other questions are why did Czech not answer Silberman's requests? The information has been made available to John Elder Robinson. The information was presented in a public forum about Asperger by Czech 5 years ago at a time when the DSM was deciding to remove the Aspergers as a diagnosis, why did not Silberman and others pick this up? No matter what people thought about Aspergers as a diagnosis it was conventional wisdom that these questions had been settled.

Maybe Silberman did not approach Czech the right way, who knows? Maybe he used an outdated email address. Maybe he did not find Silberman sufficiently academic. You want to be careful who you turn over valuable papers to.

Could be any number of reasons Czech did not respond.

Ari Ne'eman on Neurotribes, In a Different Key and the Neurodiversity movement

A lot of the article is a description and defense of the Neurodiversity movement. For the topics of this thread Ne'eman while acknowledging there are important revelations concurs with the critics of the book. The authors are described as seemingly insulted and resentful that autistics are speaking up for themselves. Ne'eman believes the authors "present the Neurodiversity movement as a grave threat to the future of autism research". While anti shock treatment the book is described as pro Loovas. Ne'eman believes that while hostile to the neurodiversity movement, the fact that they had to address it represents progress.

As far as Hans Asperger Ne'eman believes that the book "raises concerning questions that should certainly be explored in more detail."

I respect Ari Ne'eman and his Autistic Self Advocacy Network generally. I wear the group's T-shirt when I lobby elected public servants, or simply want a "dog-whistle" to attract other autistic individuals who I might meet. But, I have the slightest of minor disagreements with some matters in which the group has engaged (for example, I suspect strongly that if other nonprofit organizations enjoyed 80 percent of its officers and staffers coming from just one gender, there would understandably be calls for better diversity).

Still, Mr. Ne'eman's commentary about the In a Different Key book written by John Donvan and Caren Zucker is exactly that which I would have written ... if I could contain my anger long enough to do so.

I feel somewhat vindicated in my doubts about the book that Ne'eman describes as valuable, but not very user friendly. I still keep my copy of Steve Silberman's NeuroTribes on my desk to read when I need a reference within it, and I still haven't bought In a Different Key.

Why does it matter if Asperger was a Nazi or not?

if he knowingly sent children to there deaths,thats not a good thing.if he joined the party for fear of being arrested for being anti nazi,a lot of people did that fearing if they did not join the party they could be killed

But these things seem insignificant in the larger picture of autism today.
It doesn't matter to me if Asperger was a true nazi who sent children to gas chambers or someone who joined the party from fear.
He is just one individual, and the syndrome is just named for him based on some of his findings, but knowledge has moved way beyond him and his work by now.

People still use the term "Asperger Syndrome" which was named to honor him. People still call themselves "Aspies" and as we have previously discussed some even use "Aspie" a important form of self identification as some others use "Jewish" or "black". American eugenics sterilized people to prevent disabled people from bieng born. Nazi eugenicists murdered them after they were born. So if it is true that he was complicant or agreed with Nazi eugenics it would be a very bad idea to keep using the term Asperger's syndrome or describe oneself as an Aspie. Autistics have problems with change, if people who self identify as Aspies find out they are self identifying with a person who was complicit or agreed with an idea designed to eliminate people like themselves this is likely to be psychologically quite traumatic. The whole Aspie self identity phenomenon started with Adults finding out there is word to describe them and that there are other people out there like them. A lot of that positive beginning of Aspie self identity has been forgotten with all the negative stereotypes associated with the term in the last few years, but that does not change what it meant to people and how it was or still is helpful. So if people who waited decades for this self identity feel have to give it up under these circumstances it is going to be excruatingly difficult.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 24 Jan 2016, 8:27 pm, edited 6 times in total.