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Today’s TED Talk Steve Silberman: The forgotten history of autism

June 17, 2015 /

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Decades ago, few pediatricians had heard of autism. In 1975, 1 in 5,000 kids was estimated to have it. Today, 1 in 68 is on the autism spectrum. What caused this steep rise? Steve Silberman points to "a perfect storm of autism awareness" — a pair of doctors with an accepting view, an unexpected pop culture moment and a new clinical test. But to really understand, we have to go back further to an Austrian doctor by the name of Hans Asperger, who published a pioneering paper in 1944. Because it was buried in time, autism has been shrouded in misunderstanding ever since. (This talk was part of a TED2015 session curated by Pop-Up Magazine: popupmagazine.com or @popupmag on Twitter.)

Video: http://www.ted.com/talks/steve_silberman_the_forgotten_history_of_autism?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_campaign=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_content=button__2015-06-17