Unstrange Minds

New book to report. It's called Unstrange Minds by Roy Richard Grinker. It too is about autism and they way different cultures treat autism. He goes into depth about South Korea, where autism carries a heavy stigma for all of the families affected by it. Again, the issue of confusing autism with Reactive Attachment Disorder comes up. Many South Koreans think that if you can blame Autism on bad parenting and cold mothers, then you can deny that any genes are involved and that the gene pool might be "tainted" in a particular family. Unfortunately, very little effort is focused on actually educating their autistic children as they are seen as a lost cause by many and not worth the effort. It reminded me of a conversation that I had with our next door neighbor about how, according to him Asians don't have autism (he is Filipino). He thought it was an American thing. I told him that there was most certainly autistic kids in the Philipines, but they were probably hidden, not talked about and perhaps institutionalized. I'm glad that autism is being talked about and accepted more often today. It brings hope that when Ben grows up, there will be more tolerance and compassion for him to enjoy. One controversal point this book makes is the author doesn't think there has been a significant rise in the incidence of autism. He maintains that the rate of autism has always been about the same, but it was only in the late 20th century that we've started classifying it correctly. Interesting things to think about, definitely. I recommend this book!