In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the civil rights of people with autism and other disabilities.
At NYT, Eric Michael Garcia talks to John Williams about his new book, We're Not Broken.
In the interview, he talks about the impact of IDEA and ADA:
That created the larger thesis of my book, because it said that the whole reason people like myself — I was born in 1990 — got to have resources was because of deliberate public policy decisions. It made me realize that my life was made significantly better because of it. I went to private school from 7th grade on, but before that I went to public schools, and I got accommodations that wouldn’t have been available otherwise. And at university, I got tutoring and I got disability services. Those were the result of the A.D.A. Our lives are often determined by things beyond our control. People like to talk about personal responsibility and personal choices, but my ability to determine my destiny was because of those deliberate public policy decisions that hadn’t been made before.
The major takeaway:
Whether you know it or not, you know someone with autism. We often talk about autism while talking past autistic people. I tried to include as many voices and cover as many people as possible. If you truly care about autistic people, listen to what they need.
