notes toward ATTW presentation

Good term for my presentation : the "broader autism phenotype" (Attwood).

"Pathways to diagnosis" (Attwood cites the Yale study) is an interesting network concept.

Ie, opening line of my talk:
"The Yale study's highly publicized findings pose this question: do we attribute the autism epidemic to better diagnosis or increased prevalence of the broader autism phenotype? However, no research as explored the possibility that autism is transmitted via the Worldwide Web". Har!

It's strange that Attwood doesn't specifically name the WWW as a pathway to diagnosis.

Oooh. And this would be the theoretical frame:
Much of what we know about medical discourse separates medical discourse into two diverging categories: the professionals and the quacks (cite Faber, Koerber and Tebeaux -- use funny diagram of professional w/tie and funny-looking quack, use my hat, which I won't wear to the conference, as the model for the quack). What we lack is a good model for how these 2 discourses intertwine.

HFA as an example par excellence.

Step 1: APA - affiliated message boards and forums, or MB and forums est. by parents of children diagnosed with autism.

Interesting features: References to DSM -IV criteria, medical-model + psychosocial support.

(Note: Dr. Phil has an AS / HFA message board. No shit!)

Step 2: Individuals w/ AS HFA post in "parents asking adults with AS / HFA sections". Medical model + psychosocial support.

Step 3: And then an interesting thing happened: writers w AS / HFA argue for depathologization.

These writers directly critique and parody the medical model.

Step 4: Professionals (Baron-Cohen, Attwood, etc) argue for depathologization of the broader autism phenotype in medical journals, citing the www writing of adults with AS / HFA (folk psychology, folk physics).

Note loop : Diagnosis is step 0 and step .... n.

HEY! I could email Barb Kirby and get notes from the old message board, woot!