The few psychologists and pediatricians who had heard of autism felt confident that they would get through their entire careers without seeing a single case. Their children's disability, they were told, was too rare and obscure to justify launching a new organization. In January 1962, a small group of parents in London began meeting in the kitchen of Helen Allison to form a new organization that they initially called just “The Project.” They were told by other parents that the chances of getting the organization off the ground were slim.

Steve Silberman, a former science writer for Wired and the author of the book NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, pointed to the rise of the autism advocacy movement as one way of understanding public perceptions of autism and other conditions ( Silberman, 2015). Sometimes expertise is more readily available in that kind of setting than with clinicians covered by private insurance, where it can be difficult to get appointments and guarantee coverage. They were the best people we dealt with,” she said. “These psychiatrists knew exactly what you were saying. In that respect, said Costello, Internet contact proved to be “more intimate than, say, watching a television show about people.”Ĭostello also pointed to the excellent care that she and her son received at a community mental health center. Another study at King's College ( Mehta, 2015) also found that education had a small but statistically significant effect, while one-on-one and Internet contact had a moderate impact. For instance, a study by Corrigan (2001), using 150 community college students as subjects, found that education had some impact on changing attitudes, one-on-one contact had more impact, and protests had no impact. Some of the money generated by California's 1 percent tax on millionaires was spent on research into stigma. During her book tour, she said, “it was striking how powerful it was for people, for other parents especially, to hear someone talking about their story.” Personal stories help break down the stigma that surrounds these conditions, said Costello, because “they can relate to you as a person, as a parent, and then that helps them imagine that they can own up to what's going on in their households.”Ĭostello worked on the board of the Mental Health Association of San Francisco.

Science journalist Victoria Costello, who also spoke earlier in the workshop (see Chapter 2), focused on the theme of stigma, based on her book that discusses the various disorders that her family has experienced over three generations ( Costello, 2012).

Silberman autism