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Is there a gene for autism? Despite a billion-dollar, twenty-year
effort to find out-and the more elusive the answer, the greater the
search seems to become-no single autism gene has been identified.
In Multiple Autisms, Jennifer S. Singh sets out to discover how
autism emerged as a genetic disorder and how this affects those who
study autism and those who live with it. This is the first
sustained analysis of the practices, politics, and meaning of
autism genetics from a scientific, cultural, and social
perspective. In 2004, when Singh began her research, the prevalence
of autism was reported as 1 in 150 children. Ten years later, the
number had jumped to 1 in 100, with the disorder five times more
common in boys than in girls. Meanwhile the diagnosis changed to
"autistic spectrum disorders," and investigations began to focus
more on genomics than genetics, less on single genes than on
hundreds of interacting genes. Multiple Autisms charts this shift
and its consequences through nine years of ethnographic
observations, analysis of scientific and related literatures, and
morethan seventy interviews with autism scientists, parents of
children with autism, and people on the autism spectrum. The book
maps out the social history of parental activism in autism
genetics, the scientific optimism about finding a gene for autism
and the subsequent failure, and the cost in personal and social
terms of viewing and translating autism through a genomic lens. How
is genetic information useful to people living with autism? By
considering this question alongside the scientific and social
issues that autism research raises, Singh's work shows us the true
reach and implications of a genomic gaze.
Is there a gene for autism? Despite a billion-dollar, twenty-year
effort to find out-and the more elusive the answer, the greater the
search seems to become-no single autism gene has been identified.
In Multiple Autisms, Jennifer S. Singh sets out to discover how
autism emerged as a genetic disorder and how this affects those who
study autism and those who live with it. This is the first
sustained analysis of the practices, politics, and meaning of
autism genetics from a scientific, cultural, and social
perspective. In 2004, when Singh began her research, the prevalence
of autism was reported as 1 in 150 children. Ten years later, the
number had jumped to 1 in 100, with the disorder five times more
common in boys than in girls. Meanwhile the diagnosis changed to
"autistic spectrum disorders," and investigations began to focus
more on genomics than genetics, less on single genes than on
hundreds of interacting genes. Multiple Autisms charts this shift
and its consequences through nine years of ethnographic
observations, analysis of scientific and related literatures, and
morethan seventy interviews with autism scientists, parents of
children with autism, and people on the autism spectrum. The book
maps out the social history of parental activism in autism
genetics, the scientific optimism about finding a gene for autism
and the subsequent failure, and the cost in personal and social
terms of viewing and translating autism through a genomic lens. How
is genetic information useful to people living with autism? By
considering this question alongside the scientific and social
issues that autism research raises, Singh's work shows us the true
reach and implications of a genomic gaze.
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