TY - JOUR
T1 - Rigid Therapies, Rigid Minds
T2 - Italian Professionals’ Perspectives on Autism Interventions
AU - Cascio, M. Ariel
N1 - Funding Information:
This submission represents original work and has not been submitted or published elsewhere. Portions of this work were presented on March 19, 2014 at the Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meeting in Albuquerque, NM, under the title “‘This Is the Italian Variant on TEACCH’: Italian Adaptation of a North Carolina Autism Service Model.” Research for this article was funded by an Institute of International Education Fulbright Grant, academic year 2012–2013; a Dissertation Research Assistance Grant under the supervision of Eileen-Anderson-Fye; a Baker Nord Center for the Humanities Graduate Research Grant at Case Western Reserve University; and an Arts & Sciences Dissertation Fellowship at Case Western Reserve University. Several Italian individuals and organizations made this research possible including Professor Roberto Malighetti and the Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca; Cascina Rossago; Cooperativa Aurora 2000 and the Spazio Autismo; Cooperativa I Percorsi; Cooperativa Spazio Aperto Servizi; Fondazione Istitute Sacra Famiglia ONLUS; Gruppo Asperger ONLUS; and Progetto Filippide.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015, Springer Science+Business Media New York.
PY - 2015/6/27
Y1 - 2015/6/27
N2 - Many therapies, interventions, and programs seek to improve outcomes and quality of life for people diagnosed with autism spectrum conditions. This paper addresses Italian professionals’ perspectives on a variety of such interventions, including TEACCH, ABA, Defeat Autism Now!, and Doman–Delacato. Drawing on participant-observation and interviews collected in 2012–2013 in a northern region of Italy, it highlights the theme of “rigidity” that appears in professionals’ discourses about both the characteristics of people with autism and the potential risks of adhering too strictly to any particular treatment protocol. The co-occurrence of the theme of rigidity across different domains demonstrates a way in which diagnostic characteristics become metaphors for medical practice. This paper proposes that such discursive moves may help bridge the gap between people with autism and people who work with them because a key attribute of people with autism—thinking and/or acting rigidly—is also a potential pitfall for people without autism.
AB - Many therapies, interventions, and programs seek to improve outcomes and quality of life for people diagnosed with autism spectrum conditions. This paper addresses Italian professionals’ perspectives on a variety of such interventions, including TEACCH, ABA, Defeat Autism Now!, and Doman–Delacato. Drawing on participant-observation and interviews collected in 2012–2013 in a northern region of Italy, it highlights the theme of “rigidity” that appears in professionals’ discourses about both the characteristics of people with autism and the potential risks of adhering too strictly to any particular treatment protocol. The co-occurrence of the theme of rigidity across different domains demonstrates a way in which diagnostic characteristics become metaphors for medical practice. This paper proposes that such discursive moves may help bridge the gap between people with autism and people who work with them because a key attribute of people with autism—thinking and/or acting rigidly—is also a potential pitfall for people without autism.
KW - Autism
KW - Ethnography
KW - Health and human services
KW - Italy
KW - Metaphor
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84929954646&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s11013-015-9439-6
DO - 10.1007/s11013-015-9439-6
M3 - Article
C2 - 25743186
AN - SCOPUS:84929954646
VL - 39
SP - 235
EP - 253
JO - Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry
JF - Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry
SN - 0165-005X
IS - 2
ER -