This was fascinating. As a mom of a recently diagnosed autistic daughter, this book offered so much context, history, and showed how needed autistic people are in society. So many advances in technology, science, etc, exist because of the differences in their abilities and focus, think, and view the world and things within it. While yes, there are difficulties depending on what impairments each person has, there are also so many benefits.

I felt like this gave me a great sense of historical pieces and footing for all those benefits and positives, as well as helping me make sense of many of the things I’ve heard with all the Autism Speaks agendas I grew up with. That autism isn’t a recent thing nor is it an epidemic. It’s just not been labeled correctly in the past or diagnosed well until recently, and it’s just one of the ways each human being is different.