Tuesday, November 03, 2015

'Hopeful' study of autism wins Samuel Johnson prize 2015

Neurotribes by Steve Silberman takes £20,000 award for book ‘arguing that we should stop drawing sharp lines between normal and abnormal’  



Steve Silberman and Leo Rosa, 14, who has autism and likes to calm himself with green straws from Starbucks.
‘Compassionate journalism’ ... Steve Silberman and Leo Rosa, 14, who has autism and likes to calm himself with green straws from Starbucks. Photograph: Carlos Chaverría for the Guardian
Steve Silberman’s investigation into autism, Neurotribes, has become the first popular science book to win the Samuel Johnson prize, praised by judges of the prestigious non-fiction award for “inject[ing] a hopeful note into a conversation that’s normally dominated by despair”.
Working for Wired magazine, Silberman first began to look into the topic when he discovered that two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs he had interviewed had autistic children. Telling a friend about “this curious synchronicity” in a cafe, a special-education teacher at the next table overheard, and informed him: “There is an epidemic of autism in Silicon Valley. Something terrible is happening to our children.”

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