Uncovering the secrets of Autism Spectrum Conditions| Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen| IIS
Channel: India Inclusion Summit
Date: 11/03/2016

World's leading authority on Autism, Prof Simon Baron-Cohen uncovers the secrets of Autism Spectrum Conditions 
 
Is there a relation between scientists and Autism? How about Engineering and Autism? Prof Simon Baron-Cohen and his team of researchers pondered on these questions when they started conducting research in the City of Eindhoven in Netherlands. The city is seen as the 'silicon valley' of Netherlands and has birth of many Engineering organizations for a century now. Especially companies like Philips has made Eindhoven its home base. The results did surprise them. They found out that Autism is twice more prevalent in Eindhoven, compared to two other cities in Netherlands. Their research also showed that children with Autism were more attracted towards patterns and systems instead of human interaction. Moreover the parents of people with Autism were found to be working in Engineering disciplines giving a hint that it might be genetically linked as well. Professor Simon wonders out loud if Autism could be more common in Bangalore, the Indian Silicon Valley due to the nature of technology related jobs in the city. In this talk, Simon traces back the history of discrimination against disability by nations in Europe and in US and the sterilization laws that were in place to discriminate people with disability in the 1930's. Counting incidents of euthanization during this bleak period of history, Professor says, 'We have to remember history so as to not repeat its mistakes'. Humanity seems to have learnt from its mistakes and countries like UK have, since 2005, adopted the Disability (anti) discrimination bill to stop discrimination of people with disability thus setting an example to other nations world over that it's high time we started embracing Neurodiversity which will gift the humanity our next Einstein and Newton. 
  
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About Prof. Simon Baron Cohen: 
Simon Baron-Cohen is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology, University of Cambridge and Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. He is Director, Autism Research Centre (ARC) in Cambridge (www.autismresearchcentre.com). He has degrees in Human Sciences from New College, Oxford, a PhD in Psychology from UCL, and an M.Phil in Clinical Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, London. He is author of Mindblindness (1995), The Essential Difference (2003), Prenatal Testosterone in Mind (2005), and Zero Degrees of Empathy (2011). He has written books for parents and teachers including Autism and Asperger Syndrome: The Facts (2008), and Teaching Children with Autism to Mindread (1999). He has celebrated autism in An Exact Mind (2004). He is author of the DVDs Mind Reading and The Transporters, to help children with autism learn emotion recognition, both nominated for BAFTA awards. He is author of over 400 scientific articles. 
 
Prof. Simon Baron Cohen's full profile: http://www.autismresearchcentre.com/people_baron-cohen 
Twitter handle: https://twitter.com/sbaroncohen