My college psychology textbook says...

[WildCat]

That highlighted part, in the second paragraph, about those with ASD treating people as no different than objects in the environment? Well, I'd say to just toss the book in the trash...any text that refers to any ASD as a "disease" can be safely discarded.

I really don't need to say much on that. If that's the case, how do you explain things like anxiety around said people? Clearly there's a difference between human and thing, and I sure as hell am not blind to it. Not only that, but I definitely don't treat others like objects...not denying my difficulties with socialization and communication here at all, but I don't go around viewing people as lifeless statues. If that's what this textbook is trying to imply...I have banged heads in the past, but that's a story for another time

As far as this textbook being on point about ASD, it's not by a longshot, but I'm sure the psych students will soak it up anyways and go out there determined to make a difference in someone's life. I'd love to see how that plays out, by the way...plenty of "horror stories" out there about how things didn't work and how children grow into adults who eventually become allergic to BS. No surprise, given that I'm one of them...

 

[scifinerd]

They missed the part where it's exclusively a male 'disease' ...

This is incredibly outdated.
I'm not going to take offense unless you print the publication date and it's post 1980.

The publication date on my textbook is 2017.

 

[Judge]

Ironically though the spectrum of autism itself isn't a psychological condition per se, but rather a neurological one.

Small wonder it should be further stereotyped and misunderstood under a category where it doesn't really belong in the first place. Just another reason to avoid a diagnosis through someone educated only in psychology rather than neurology or psychiatry with an M.D..

 

[scifinerd]

They also put this in the section of my book labeled psychological disorders. Which I could live with it weren't for the fact that there's no mention of the fact that ASD's aren't psychological disorders. That and they listed this right under schizophrenia.

 

[Judge]

Might be interesting if someone brought this textbook to the attention of the American Psychiatric Association for some proper feedback.

 

[WildCat]

This excerpt would've been par for the course decades ago, but not anymore. It's 2017, welcome to the information age. We have people on the spectrum communicating (not always in real-time, mind you) and - dare I say it - socializing. Yes, communicating and socializing. Some of them are those dreaded non-verbal folks that everyone likes to dismiss and ignore...I'd pay closer attention to them if nobody else.

I would like to take offense to all of this and just go wild, but sadly I've been offended so much that I can't muster the strength to be offended anymore.

 

[SunnyDay16]

Textbooks are usually full of overgeneralizations, outdated information, and bias presented as fact.

 

[kay]

Is there some official somebody at the university to complain to? This text book is so out of date and negative it really needs out of the class. There is no excuse for the book being published, much less used to teach.

 

[Lady Penelope]

The publication date on my textbook is 2017.

Utterly incomprehensible....

 

[GGPViper]

The textbook (Psychology Applied to Modern Life: Adjustment in the 21st Century, 12th edition) devotes 30 out of 483 pages to a chapter describing *all* psychological disorders... That's approximately 6 percent of the book...

With so little space (and by extension: interest from the authors) devoted to the subject, one cannot be *too* surprised that it falls into the realm of overgeneralization... Terms like "disease" and "recovery" are obviously misleading, but the textbook was obviously never intended to be an in-depth description in the first place...

 

[Streetwise]

The publication date on my textbook is 2017.

go to the dean of the college ,what is being taught is descrimination theres another member on af/ac who probably has the same textbook.
even better go to the aclu-civil rights are important in a democracy .
wish i could help more but my short and long term memory are unnerving .

 

[scifinerd]

also think of the poor Forests that have been cut down, to supply this to organisations like autism speaks -who will Delight in it ,i bet they asked autism speaks what should be written.

Haha I thought the exact same thing about it loooking like information from autism speaks.

 

[scifinerd]

Okay, since when is it a three-year-old's job to connect with adults? Especially ones who take great pride in their supposed ability to connect with people?

And that photo from the ABA session was hideous. The kid makes more eye contact than the umbridge – but he makes it with the camera, and not the umbridge.

Yeah that picture actually amuses me. Nobody makes eye contact with each other 24/7. They aren’t wrong about the eye contact aspect but that picture really doesn’t mean anything. Anyone can look away from someone in a photograph.

 

[scifinerd]

go to the dean of the college ,what is being taught is descrimination theres another member on af/ac who probably has the same textbook.
even better go to the aclu-civil rights are important in a democracy .
wish i could help more but my short and long term memory are unnerving .

I very much agree. I’m planning to take it to the Dean today.

 

[Katleya]

I'm still not quite over the shock that a book like that could be published, considering the harm it can cause later down the road.
Judge's suggestion to contact the American Psychiatric Association was a good one. I'd say Streetwise's suggestion to reach out to the ACLU as well, but I'm more reserved on going to the dean; that could backfire, because you would be in the position of a student (so someone who is at the bottom of the college food chain, even though they need the big bucks students bring them) going against their professor, who likely picked the book. Unless the dean is a super open & intelligent person, they'd pretty much take your concern as you calling them dumb & acting like you know better than them, and they're not going to be too happy about it (even though you actually do know better than them, that's the saddest part).

As for the disease part, I read that last night but forgot to comment on it: I actually kind of wish we had a social disease, that would mean we're contagious... and it implies we could make more people be like us Imagine how much better the world would be with less social comedy, more honesty, etc.

 

[dragoncat16]

I read that passage with the eye of a researcher and I see very few citations in the first paragraphs (the ones that contain the highest density of BS). This indicates to me that the author is either using his/her own personal knowledge in the writing, or that he/she is writing what he/she considers the "common knowledge" on the topic. The only information that is cited there refers to numbers and statistics. The rest of it seems to have been pulled straight out of the author's... um.... head (but you know what I was going to say, right?).

 

[Streetwise]

I very much agree. I’m planning to take it to the Dean today.

make sure he understands youve shown other people this excerpt ,people dont like if theyre being watched ,i know from experience also ,please tell the autism advocates network in the US.
the problem is if your fellow students see you regularly they may have read up on the flavour of the month autism and notice that you dont quite always act 100% n.t,be careful!,
text books in islamic countries have blotted out the existence of jewish israel what i mean is

 

[Crossbreed]

It mentions Kanner. Does it ever go on to mention Wing/Asperger? or Attwood...?

(So many of my local quacks stop at Kanner.)

 

[dragoncat16]

It might be worth writing a letter to the publisher as well. They really have to take responsibility for what they publish. I bet that the very least they would do is make sure the information is accurate in the next edition of the textbook.

 

[Ambi]

How bad is it that I don't expect textbooks to be very accurate to begin with? :-( Like...about anything. Other than math and hard sciences. I think the main problem is just that it hones in on a very specific fraction of the spectrum but claims that it applies to the whole spectrum. I think this kind of misinformation is rampant in textbooks and classrooms, though.