Читать книгу Autism: A Family's Journey - Michael Terrill - Страница 7

Learning on the Job

Laurie describes those early post-diagnosis days. “What was autism? I had no clue. I had absolutely no idea. Is it developmental? Is it psychological? I truly did not know. None of my friends had ever had children with autism. It wasn’t very prevalent at that time. One in 10,000, I think. It wasn’t like it was something that was happening every day, like it is now. I read a lot of books, went to the library, did whatever I could to try to figure it out. But if you think about 16 years ago, the things you read were pretty damned scary.” Referring to a widespread and discredited early theory on autism, Lori remembered, “There was one book that called it the ‘refrigerator mother’ syndrome, blaming the mothers of children with autism for being cold and distant. That was not fun, to have it called my fault.”