An Autism Reality Check

A couple months ago, Steve Silberman published his book, NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity. The book has set off a firestorm of controversy in the autism blogosphere. The reason? Mr. Silberman interviewed many individuals on the autism spectrum for his book, who are clearly verbal and behaviorally stable enough to withstand interviews; subsequently Silberman routinely refers to individuals with autism as being “gifted” and “scruffy geniuses.”

But as Amy S. F. Lutz points out in her blog piece, Please Stop Whitewashing Autism, Mr. Silberman devotes only nine out of 480 pages of his book to . . .