TPP 091a: A Conversation With Steve Silberman About His Book “Neurotribes”
episode
Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
39 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 8 hours ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What inspired Steve Silberman to write *NeuroTribes* and who is the book for?
Hey, it's Debbie. This fall on Playback Fridays, I am going back through the archives to share some of those conversations that have stayed with me over the years. So you guys know I've been doing this show for a very long time. And while I value every conversation I've had, there are some that have stuck with me because they either shifted my thinking, they inspired me, or they changed the way I show up as a parent. So those are the ones I'll be revisiting this fall. And I hope they do the same for you. Welcome to the Till Parenting Podcast, a podcast featuring interviews and conversations aimed at inspiring, informing, and supporting parents raising differently wired kids. I'm your host, Debbie Rieber, and today's conversation is one I am so excited to share with you.
My guest is Steve Silberman, a science writer who authored the 2015 book NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity. A brilliant book that upends conventional thinking about autism and suggests a broader model for acceptance, understanding, and full participation in society for people who think differently. Steve's articles have appeared in Wired, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Financial Times, The Boston Globe, the MIT Technology Review, Nature, Ceylon, Shambhala Sun, and many other publications. 2016, Steve gave the keynote speech at the United Nations for World Autism Awareness Day. He's also given talks on the history of autism at Yale, Harvard, MIT, Oxford, the National Academy of Sciences, Queen Mary University, Apple, Microsoft, Google, the 92nd Street Y, and more.
His TED Talk, The Forgotten History of Autism, has been viewed more than a million times and translated into 25. Languages. Having this conversation with Steve about neurodifference, acceptance, tolerance, changing cultures, systemic change, and much more was such a thrill and honor. And now, without further ado, here's my conversation with Steve. Hey Steve, welcome to the podcast.
Hey Debbie, I'm really honored to be here. Thank you for asking me to be on the show.
Oh my goodness. Well, the honor is mine. I'm super excited to be bringing you to the Tilt Parenting audience. And I really wanted to introduce your work, NeuroTribes. I'm sure many people in my audience have read the book or are familiar with it, and there are probably a lot of people who aren't who are new to this journey. So maybe we could just start if you could tell us a little bit about NeuroTribes, the book, what your big goal was. what was in writing it and who it's aimed at.
Sure. Well The inspiration to write it was the fact that uh in two thousand one I wrote an article about autism in high tech communities like Silicon Valley. Uh it was an article called The Geek Syndrome that appeared in Wired. And um the article came out right after nine eleven, so I figured that, you know, hardly anyone would have time to read it or care about it. But instead what happened was I got email about the article for ten years and that's very, very unusual for a magazine article. Usually they're forgotten overnight. And the emails, many of which were from parents actually, were about very basic problems in accessing services for their kids on the spectrum. Uh I also got lots of emails from people who are on the spectrum themselves.
who were unable to you know ever find a job, even if b they had been told they were prodigies when they were young because they couldn't make it through a face to face interview. And so these emails were very heart wrenching and really had to do with very basic failure of society to provide reasonable support and accommodations for people on the spectrum and their families. And it was causing a tremendous amount of you know, just the sheer volume of human suffering that I read about practically every week for ten years after uh my article came out. Meanwhile, a funny thing was happening, which was that the entire world was becoming obsessed with autism. Uh but they were what they were becoming obsessed with was the question uh as to whether or not vaccines cause autism.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What inspired Steve Silberman to write *NeuroTribes* and who is the book for?
0:00–6:11
2
How did the anti‑vaccine movement affect autistic families and the autism narrative?
6:11–11:30
3
Why does calling autism an “epidemic” cause harm, and what language should we use instead?
11:30–16:34
4
How did autistic communities and parents react to *NeuroTribes* when it was released?
16:34–21:37
5
What challenges did Steve face writing a 800‑page history of autism?
21:37–26:21
6
What did Steve learn from attending the autistic retreat Autreat?
26:21–30:31
7
Where is the neurodiversity movement heading and how can parents help advance it?
30:31–35:14
8
Which resources and books does Steve recommend for families and autistic adults?
35:14–39:56
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
TPP 266a: A Conversation with Poet and Advocate LeDerick Horne
TPP 522: A Whole Child Approach to ADHD with Phil Boucher, M.D.
TPP 521: A Conversation with Dr. Peter Gray About Restoring Childhood
TPP 253a: Advocate and Author Jonathan Mooney on Why Normal Sucks
TPP 520: Dr. Özgür Bolat on Why Rewards Backfire and the Real Science of Motivating Kids
TPP 519: Brendan Mahan on Overcoming the Wall of Awful