Doubts about the book "In a Different Key"?

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I have finally finished the book. It was for then most part the story of parents of Autistics organizing for good and bad. As has been mentioned if you are sympathetic to the Neurodiversity movement and dislike ABA there are many parts of the book that you will strongly dislike. In talking about Lovaas 1960's work the authors several times found the need to tell us dispite the criticism the inconvenient truth was that it worked. To the authors credit they note how Autism Speaks became a became a behemoth by riding the anti vax wave. Then it gets a bit bizarre as they seem to think the Wright family disagreements over vaccinations tore the organization apart and weakened it. Unless I am missing something they are still the Autism Policy agenda setters in America. They note that in 2015 Autism Speaks "quietly" released a statement saying vaccines do not cause autism. They did not mention this statement came in the immediate aftermath of the Disneyland measles outbreak. Of interest to WP members there only a few paragraphs to the self diagnosis issue. By mentioning the infamous 2012 New York Magazine "Is Everybody on the Spectrum?" article it showed how they feel. There was plenty of words about the lack adult services and research so not connecting the dots is a failure. The authors take too much liberty describing the motives of people.

That bieng said I still recommend reading it. Most of the criticism is about thier point of view. Their research has not been questioned. The positive is that you will learn stuff. The book discloses many things not in Neurotribes while greatly expanding upon other topics that are in Neurotribes. There is a very positive portrayal of Alex Plank and the founding of Wrong Planet. The book is a unintentional primer on networking something many autistics could use help with.

Now we have two exhaustive histories of Autism written from different points of view. Each chapter of these books could be a topic of a book by themselves. As for the topics of the Autism rights and the neurodiversity movement we can not expect or depend on the NT's like Steve Silberman to come along very often. Just as autistics have written books that have helped autistics and open minded NT's get an understanding of what is like to be autistic it is Autistics that will have to write about the history and Autism Rights and ND movements.

i am halfway through neurotribes now and am very suprised at the imformation thats now surfacing that must have been known but was never talked about.like how Kanner worked so closely to people who knew Asperger and the influence Asperger had on Kanner although never aknknowledged

I already ordered and received the book. I read the first few chapters and plan to read more of it. Myself, because my mother refused an "expert's" advice to institutionalize me, I want to find out more about this "lost generation" of autistics consigned to the back wards of institutions.