Autism and Us: Old As Time

Eustacia Cutler, Temple Grandin’s mother, earned a B.A. from Harvard, was a band singer at the Pierre Hotel in New York City, performed and composed for New York cabaret, and wrote school lessons for major TV networks. Her research on autism and other disabilities created the scripts for two WGBH television documentaries: The Disquieted and The Innocents, a prize-winning first.  Her 2006 book, A Thorn in My Pocket, describes raising her daughter, Temple Grandin, in the conservative world of the 1950s when autistic children were routinely diagnosed as infant schizophrenics. Today Cutler lectures nationally and internationally on autism and its relation to the rapidly emerging bio-neurological study of brain plasticity. She discusses what causes rigid behavior in autism, the toll it takes on the family, and how current research into the neural nature of consciousness is pointing toward insightful possibilities of change. She lives in New York.

• Chapter 1IntroductionChapter 2: The Nature of AutismChapter 3: The Nature of Our ResponseChapter 4: Man, TheChapter 5: The Bed of Hot CoalsChapter 6: Autism in Victorian LiteratureChapter 7: Medical Progress Meets the Concert Stage Late 19th CenturyChapter 8: World War IIChapter 9: Autism and the Minefield of Blame 1940-1950Chapter 10: Honor and Shame in the 1960’sChapter 11: Anxiety and Change in the 1970’sChapter 12: The Asperger’s Story 1980’s – 1990’sChapter 13: The Mirror Neuron Story 1990’s – 2018Chapter 14: Putting It All Together and Acting On It

Cutler gives a unique perspective on the past century of growth in our understanding of the condition"- Autism Eye