History Literature / NeuroTribes

* TheRainMan: Some of the people with ASD described in the book are examples of this trope, although [[Film/RainMan Raymond Babbit]] himself actually wasn't completely based on one! One example of this trope is two twin brothers who are severely autistic but can discover enormous prime numbers in their head, and can instantly count matches that fall out of a box in a split second (identically to Babbit).

* How ''Rain Man'' increased awareness of (some forms of) autism.

* CompositeCharacter: ''Rain Man'', it is pointed out, is not solely based on savant Kim Peek, but also displays characteristics of autism based on two autistic men that Dustin Hoffman spent a lot of time with and studied.

* MetaphoricallyTrue: In order to prevent the Nazis who ran his country from exterminating autistics, Hans Asperger hid the truth of the breadth of the autism spectrum from them, instead presenting only his "most promising cases". By pointing to his "most promising cases" and not mentioning the rest of the autism spectrum he'd seen, he technically didn't ''lie'' to his Nazi superiors about what autism could be like, even if he was making autism look like it was better than it often actually was. However, this deliberately constructed half truth about what autism was, later resulted in "Asperger's Syndrome" coming to refer only to the most intelligent and least overtly disabled of autistics.
* TheRainMan: Some of the autistics described in the book are examples of this trope, although ''Rain Man'' himself actually wasn't completely based on one! One example of this trope is two twin brothers who are severely autistic but can discover enormous prime numbers in their head, and can instantly count matches that fall out of a box in a split second.

** HarsherInHindsight: This still didn't stop Asperger from handing over some of his patients to the Nazis anyway, something that was only brought to light after this book was published.

The result of 8 years of thorough, meticulous research by ''Wired'' writer Steve Silberman, '''[=NeuroTribes=]''' is his epic take on the history and present of the autism spectrum. It covers a massive variety of topics, from how autism may have presented itself in the distant past, to how the condition in its varied forms was discovered independently at multiple times in history, to how it was understood (or misunderstood, as the case so often was), to the lives of autistics themselves, from ways some of them were able to make successful careers, improve the sciences and the arts, engage in self-advocacy, and change the public understanding and perception of the condition.

--->“It’s a question of diagnosis,” Lorna said firmly. By expanding Kanner’s narrow definition of his syndrome to include more mildly impaired children and adults, she had expected estimates of autism prevalence to rise. That was precisely the point: making the diagnosis available to more people, so that they and their families wouldn’t have to struggle along without help as they had in the 1960s. “These people have always existed,” she said.

--->Clinical accounts of Asperger's syndrome tended to reframe neutral or even positive aspects of behavior as manifestations of deficit and impairment. Intense curiosity became ''perseveration.'' Precociously articulate speech became ''hyperlexia.'' An average score on a test became a ''relative deficit'' -- evidence of an ''uneven cognitive profile.''

--->He also began researching the history of the disability rights movement, because it struck him that many of his difficulties were not "symptoms" of his autism, but problems built into the ways that society treats people who don't meet the standard expectations of "normal".

After the article, Silberman received many letters from people, many asking him questions or telling personal stories. He heard from people who said they themselves had mild autism, or they were smart and their kid had autism. He wondered what was going on, and began to look into it in more detail, spending the next 8 years reading about psychology and tech and learning everything he could about the founders of tech companies, the major names in sci-fi, classic scientists from centuries ago, the history of psychology, case histories of anyone who showed autism traits, the write-ups of psychologists who encountered autism traits, and much more. The conclusions he came to? Well...