Constructing Autism: Unravelling the 'Truth' and Understanding the Social

by Majia Holmer Nadesan

Overview

Autism is now considered to be one of the most common developmental disorders today, yet 100 years ago the term did not exist. This book examines the historical and social events that enabled autism to be identified as a distinct disorder in the early twentieth century.

The author, herself the mother of an autistic child, argues that although there is without doubt a biogenetic component to the condition, it is the social factors involved in its identification, interpretation and remediation that determine what it means to be autistic. Constructing Autism explores the social practices and institutions that reflect and shape the way we think about autism and what effects this has on autistic people and their families. Unravelling what appears to be the ‘truth’ about autism, this informative book steps behind the history of its emergence as a modern disorder to see how it has become a crisis of twenty-first century child development.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781134355846
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/05/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Arizona State University, Phoenix, Arizona. Her research addresses relationships across institutional forms, cultural practices and individual subjectivity.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 Constructing autism; Chapter 3 Psychiatric niche conditions; Chapter 4 The history of childhood; Chapter 5 Psychological discourses construct autism; Chapter 6 Biogenetic approaches construct autism; Chapter 7 The dialectics of autism; Chapter 8 Directions in the ontology of personhood;

Editorial Reviews

'Majia Holmer Nadesan...brings a welcome sociological and historical perspective to her thoughtful and thought-provoking survey of current controversies.' - Michael Fitzpatrick, GP

From the Publisher