The movie was Rain Man, and it's the best representation of autism I've seen.  Hoffman plays a verbal but profoundly austistic character who is instituationalized.  One of the sad things it that his character isn't so deeply autistic that he couldn't have led a deeply rewarding life outside of an institution if he had been worked with from a young age (though he'd still need a sheltered work environment).

As for the rarity of the condition, autism and austism spectrum syndromes are now the diagnosis of the month.  Yes, some people who have it are getting diagnosed with it for the first time, but plenty of people (especially kids) who are in no way autistic are getting the label slapped on them by ignorant and/or unscrupulous doctors.

I predict that there will be a slight permenant rise in the number of cases found a year as our medical knowledge expands, but this whole austism boom will disappear with a whisper as soon as there's a new favorite syndrome or disease.

This popularity of the syndrome in the media, BTW, is probably what made the book on TJ publishable.  I bet if I wrote a book claiming he had Tourette's, there'd be no takers!

--Rey



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