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On Hans Asperger, the Nazis, and Autism: A Conversation Across Neurologies

by Maxfield Sparrow and Steve Silberman How complicit was Hans Asperger with the murderous eugenic policies of the Third Reich in his role as the head of the Children’s Clinic at University of Vienna in the 1930s and 1940s? This painful question, which has vexed autism history for decades, has been reopened by the simultaneous publication of Edith Sheffer’s book “Asperger’s Children” and Herwig Czech’s paper in The Journal of Molecular Autism, “Hans Asperger, National Socialism, and ‘race hygiene’ in Nazi-era Vienna.” By unearthing new information from the municipal archives in Vienna that was mistakenly believed to be lost, Sheffer and Czech make the case that Asperger was more culpable than historians previously believed. They portray him as a calculating, ambitious young physician who never joined the Nazi party but was “prematurely promoted” over the heads of his Jewish colleagues as they were purged from the university in the increasingly…

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NeuroTribes Is Finally Here: Celebrating With a Review, and a Giveaway

Shannon Des Roches Rosa  www.Squidalicious.com   Steve Silberman and Leo Rosa [image: a white man with short salt-and pepper hair, and a white teen boy with short curly brown hair, sitting on a green bench.] Steve Silberman’s long-awaited book NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity arrives in bookstores today. Finally! If you have any interest in autism whatsoever, then trust me, you need this book. (No, really. We are so excited that NeuroTribes exists that we’re hosting a giveaway, details below.) I’ll be upfront with my disclosure: When Silberman described his intention to write a book that “upends conventional thinking about autism and suggests a broader model for acceptance, understanding, and full participation in society for people who think differently,” my family and I agreed (and were honored) to be included in the project. But I would recommend NeuroTribes regardless; I’ve been pining for an autism…