Episode 20. Autism with Steve Silberman - Author of NeuroTribes

In probably his last recorded interview held in May 2024, science journalist Steve Silberman discusses everything autism, from its history to savant syndrome. And he does so with the refreshing clarity, knowledge, and insight that made him one the best informed people about the condition. I regret that Steve did not have a chance to see the podcast before its release as he sadly passed away on 28 August 2024. Our discussion traced the history of autism, Steve revealing why the almost simultaneous discovery of the condition by Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger was not a coincidence, but centered around their sharing the same assistants, George Frankl and Anni Weiss. Silberman also explored the medical myths that sullied the earlier science of autism, mostly on account of Kanner's advocay for autism as a rare disorder resulting from poor parenting skills. Referring to the ideas of the British autism expert Lorna Wing, Steve also explored what he referred to as the thorniest question of autism, the cut-off between autistic spectrum traits and normality. He also reviewed the concepts of self- and peer-confirmed diagnosis of autism. Other themes we discussed were the concepts of autistic savants, the portrayal of autism in the arts with a specific focus on the film, Rainman, the basis of autistic behaviours such as stimming, and the double empathy problem of impaired communication between people with autism and neurotypicals. Steve Silberman was an award-winning science writer whose articles have appeared in Wired, the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Financial Times, the Boston Globe, the MIT Technology Review, Salon, Shambhala, and many other publications. Steve Silberman's TED talk, “The Forgotten History of Autism,” has been viewed more than a million times and translated into 25 languages. Silberman also won a gold record from the Recording Industry Association of America for co-producing the Grateful Dead’s career-spanning boxset, So Many Roads (1965-1995), which was Rolling Stone’s box set of the year. As a young man, he was Allen Ginsberg’s teaching assistant at Naropa University.