Autism and post-traumatic stress disorder share many traits, but the connection between them was largely overlooked until now.

Having autism can sometimes mean enduring a litany of traumatic events, starting from a young age. And for many, those events may add up to severe and persistent post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Before Gabriel could even talk, his father’s girlfriend at the time told him his mother had abandoned him. At age 3, he was sexually abused by a cousin. He was mercilessly bullied once he started school, showed signs of depression by age 7 and by 11 began telling his mother he did not want to live. About three years ago, while at summer camp, he almost drowned. Shortly after that, he experienced life-threatening heatstroke when he went to get his Legos from the car trunk and accidentally locked himself in. Six months ago, just after his grandmother died, he attempted suicide.

“He’s been hurt and had so much disruption in his life that he’s having problems realizing that he has stability now,” says his mother, Kristina. (Kristina and Gabriel’s last names have been withheld to protect the family’s privacy.) “The world is chaotic and crazy for typically developed people. For him, it’s overwhelming and confusing.” Gabriel, now 13, started seeing a therapist about five years ago and last year was diagnosed with PTSD.

Gabriel’s autism was a contributing factor in most of the harrowing incidents he went through. Clinicians suspect that the condition increases the risk for certain kinds of trauma, such as bullying and other forms of abuse. Yet few studies have investigated that possibility or the psychological aftermath of such trauma, including PTSD.

“We know that about 70 percent of kids with autism will have a comorbid psychiatric disorder,” says Connor Kerns, assistant professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder are all known to be more common among autistic people than in the general population, but PTSD had largely been overlooked. Until a few years ago, only a few studies had delved into the problem, and most suggested that less than 3 percent of autistic people have PTSD, about the same rate as in typical children. If that were true, Kerns points out, PTSD would be one of the only psychiatric conditions that’s no more common in people with autism than in their typical peers.

One potential explanation, Kerns says, is that, like other psychiatric conditions, PTSD simply looks different in people with autism than it does in the general population. “It seems possible to me that it’s not that PTSD is less common but potentially that we’re not measuring it well, or that the way traumatic stress expresses itself in people on the spectrum is different,” Kerns says. “It seemed we were ignoring a huge part of the picture.”

Kerns and a few other researchers are trying to get a better understanding of the interplay between autism and PTSD, which they hope will inform and shape treatment for young people like Gabriel. The more they dig in, the more these researchers are finding that many autistic people might have some form of PTSD. “We’re all just trying to put together the pieces and recognize that it’s an important area that requires further study,” she says. “It’s been a call to arms for the field to start looking at this.”

These researchers have their work cut out for them. In the typical population, PTSD is fairly well defined. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5, psychiatry’s guide to diagnoses, PTSD usually develops after someone sees or experiences a terrifying or life-threatening event. After that initial episode, any reminder of it can trigger panic, extreme startle reflexes and flashbacks. Beyond that, however, there’s a wide variety in the way PTSD manifests: It can lead to hypervigilance and anger; it can cause recurring nightmares and other sleep issues; or it can lead to depression, persistent fear, aggression, irritability or difficulty concentrating and remembering things.

“If you do the math, according to the PTSD criteria in the DSM-5, you can have 636,000 different combinations of symptoms that that describe PTSD,” says Danny Horesh, head of the Trauma and Stress Research Lab at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. Given all the traits in people with autism that may overlay these permutations, “you have a lot of reason to think that their version of PTSD might be very different,” he says.

Preliminary studies are just beginning to confirm that idea and to show that what constitutes trauma may be different in people on the spectrum. Together with Ofer Golan, an autism expert at Bar-Ilan, and others, Horesh has begun investigating where PTSD and autism converge. The group has recruited upwards of 130 participants, including students and some people diagnosed with autism, and tried to determine where they fall on the spectrum and whether they have any traditional signs of PTSD.

Abuse, sexual assault, violence, natural disasters and wartime combat are all common causes of PTSD in the general population. Among autistic people, though, less extreme experiences — fire alarms, paperwork, the loss of a family pet, even a stranger’s offhand comment — can also be destabilizing. They can also be traumatized by others’ behavior toward them.

“We know from the literature that individuals with autism are much more exposed to bullying, ostracizing, teasing, etc.,” Golan says. “And when you look in the clinic, you can see that they’re very sensitive to these kinds of events.” Among autistic students, Golan and Horesh have found, social incidents, such as ostracizing, predict PTSD more strongly than violent ones, such as war, terror or abuse, which are not uncommon in Israel. Among typical students, though, the researchers see the opposite tendency.

Given these differences, and the communication challenges autistic people often have, their PTSD can be particularly difficult to recognize and resolve.

“It’s so absurd that there are such excellent treatments for autism today, and such excellent treatments for PTSD today, and so much research on these interventions. But no one to date has connected both,” Horesh says. “How do you treat PTSD in people with autism? No one really knows.”

It can be difficult to treat autism and PTSD separately in people who have both conditions, because the boundaries between the two are often so blurry. And that may, ironically, be the key treating them. In other conditions that overlap with PTSD, as well as those that overlap with autism, researchers have found that it is most effective to develop therapies when they look at both conditions simultaneously.

PTSD and substance misuse, for instance, often co-occur, but for decades no one understood the dynamics between them. Once clinicians began to develop and study treatments for both at the same time, however, they were able to create a tailored and effective program that eases both conditions. “This is our model,” Horesh says. “Prove that something is co-morbid, determine why, and then develop interventions for this specific group — good interventions, accurate interventions.”

The researchers are uncovering some important overlaps between autism and PTSD in their studies. In a group of 103 college students, for instance, they found that students who have more autistic traits also have more signs of PTSD, such as avoiding sources of trauma and negative changes in mood. “The highest-risk group of one was also the highest risk group in the other,” Horesh says.

The researchers also found some unexpected trends: The association between PTSD symptoms and autism traits is, for as yet unknown reasons, stronger in men than in women, even though typical women are two to three times more likely to develop PTSD than are typical men; that gender bias might eventually inform treatments. And people with more autistic traits display a specific form of PTSD, one characterized by hyperarousal: They may be more easily startled, more likely to have insomnia, predisposed to anger and anxiety, or have greater difficulty concentrating than is seen in other forms of PTSD. Recognizing this subtype could be particularly helpful for spotting and preventing it, and for developing treatments, Horesh says, especially because the same traits might otherwise be mistakenly attributed to autism and overlooked. “We know that each PTSD has a different color, a different presence in the clinic,” he says.

Given the low reported rates of PTSD in people with autism, Kerns questions whether the DSM-5’s criteria for PTSD are sensitive enough to detect its signs in this population and wonders whether clinicians need to be on the lookout for a different subset of both causes and features.

Kerns and her colleagues are interviewing autistic adults and children — as well as guardians of some less verbal autistic people — to find out more about what, for them, constitutes trauma. So far, they’ve interviewed 15 adults and 15 caregivers. What she’s learned, she says, is that it’s necessary to check any assumptions at the door. “You want to be cautious about applying neurotypical definitions — you could miss a lot,” she says.

In speaking with participants about causes of trauma, she has heard “everything from sexual abuse, emotional abuse and horrendous bullying, to much broader concepts, like what it’s like to go around your whole life in a world where you have 50 percent less input than everyone else because you have social deficits. Or feeling constantly overwhelmed by sensory experience — feeling marginalized in our society because you’re somebody with differences.” In other words, she says, “the experience of having autism and the trauma associated with that.”

One parent Kerns spoke with had moved to a shelter with her autistic son to escape intense domestic violence. Her son had witnessed the abuse but seemed more affected by the move, the change in his routine and sudden loss of the family pet, which had to be left behind, than by the violence. He began to hurt himself more than he had before, and to ask repetitively for the pet, Kerns says. “Three years later he was still asking for the pet,” she says, “because the pet was one of the few relationships and connections with another being that he had.”

In another instance, a 12-year-old boy she interviewed refused to go to school and was hospitalized for threatening self-harm; the root of his trauma turned out to be ear-piercing fire drills. For a 53-year-old woman she talked to, crippling, traumatic stress resulted from the paperwork she needs to fill out every year to qualify for housing and other types of assistance.

How PTSD manifests in autistic people can also be unexpected, and can exacerbate autistic traits, such as regression of skills or communication, as well as stereotyped behaviors and speech. Based on these observations, Kerns and her collaborators plan to create autism-specific trauma assessments to test on a larger scale.

This line of research is still in its earliest days: It is still difficult to tease apart correlation from causation. In other words, does autism predispose someone to post-traumatic stress, or are people with autism more vulnerable to experiencing traumatic events? Or both? Scientists simply don’t know the answers yet — although some studies do indicate that autistic children are more reactive to stressful events and, because they lack the coping skills that help them calm down, perhaps predisposed to PTSD.

Even when trauma is known and documented, however, treating someone on the spectrum is easier said than done. When children are nonverbal or simply view the world differently, practitioners can struggle to find the most effective way to help them work through their experiences.

“There’s some evidence that children on the spectrum tend to interpret questions differently, and in a more literal way, or that they tend to be more avoidant of questions about their trauma than typically developing children,” says Daniel Hoover, a clinical child and adolescent psychologist at the Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Center for Child and Family Traumatic Stress in Baltimore. “So they need measures that are more suited or adapted for children on the spectrum, which don’t really exist or are in development.”

One of the most effective treatments for PTSD, at least in children and adolescents, is trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy. This treatment takes a multi-pronged approach that involves both children and their parents or guardians in talk therapy and education: All of them learn what trauma is, how to navigate potentially tricky situations, and about communication tools and calming techniques for moments of distress. Clinicians prompt the affected children to talk through the traumatic experience in order to help them take control of the narrative, reframe it and make it less threatening. But in children with autism, who may be less verbal than typical children or simply less inclined to delve into the memories over and over again, such an approach can prove especially challenging.

“There are a number of core features of autism that make usual psychotherapies somewhat more complicated,” Hoover says. Typical children tend to be reluctant to talk about their traumatic experiences, but they generally give in because they know it’s good for them, he says. “Children on the spectrum are often less willing — because they’re exceedingly anxious, and because they’re not able to see the forest for the trees.” He notes that autistic children can be so keyed into the present, and so tied to routine, that they have a difficult time participating in treatment that intensifies their anxiety in the moment, even when they know it might help in the long run.

In working with these children, clinicians have also found it particularly tricky to separate the child’s understanding of a potentially traumatic event from that of their parents, who can walk away from an event with a completely different interpretation. To peel back these layers, Hoover and his colleagues at Krieger have developed a graphic, interactive phone app to help children — even minimally verbal children — use images to report experiences and the emotions associated with them. (The group is now in negotiations with a publisher and hopes to make the app publicly available within a couple of years.)

Children on the spectrum also usually take far longer to show improvement than their typical peers do. “It takes them longer to buy into it and feel comfortable, and takes them longer to integrate the concepts,” Hoover says.

That has certainly proven true for Gabriel. He is slowly making progress under Hoover’s care, Kristina says, but it has taken a long time for him to open up. “There were days when he’d sit in that chair at stare at Dr. Hoover and didn’t answer him,” she says.

After the death of his grandmother earlier this year, Gabriel became intensely afraid that Kristina might die too. When Hoover tried to talk with the boy about it, Gabriel shut down and wouldn’t engage. But just the other week, his mother says, Gabriel finally opened up. “He and Dr. Hoover bounced ideas off each other: How can we deal with these thoughts? How do we redirect them?” The dialogue showed Gabriel was gaining mastery over his story, transforming it from an overwhelming memory to something more manageable.

Just a few weeks ago, Gabriel told his mother that he worried he might try to kill himself again, and asked for her help. “Before, I had to dissect what was going on, but now Gabriel is using his words,” Kristina says, “It is a huge improvement from where he used to be.”

Robson Street is a major southeast-northwest thoroughfare in downtown and West End of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Its core commercial blocks from Burrard Street to Jervis were also known as Robsonstrasse. Its name honours John Robson, a major figure in British Columbia’s entry into the Canadian Confederation, and Premier of the province from 1889 to 1892. Robson Street starts at BC Place Stadium near the north shore of False Creek, then runs northwest past Vancouver Library Square, Robson Square and the Vancouver Art Gallery, coming to an end at Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park.

As of 2006, the city of Vancouver overall had the fifth most expensive retail rental rates in the world, averaging US$135 per square foot per year, citywide. Robson Street tops Vancouver with its most expensive locations renting for up to US$200 per square foot per year. In 2006, both Robson Street and the Mink Mile on Bloor Street in Toronto were the 22nd most expensive streets in the world, with rents of $208 per square feet. In 2007, the Mink Mile and Robson slipped to 25th in the world with an average of $198 per square feet. The price of each continues to grow with Vancouver being Burberry’s first Canadian location and Toronto’s Yorkville neighbourhood (which is bounded on the south side by Bloor) now commanding rents of $300 per square foot.

In 1895, train tracks were laid down the street, supporting a concentration of shops and restaurants. From the early to middle-late 20th century, and especially after significant immigration from postwar Germany, the northwest end of Robson Street was known as a centre of German culture and commerce in Vancouver, earning the nickname Robsonstrasse, even among non-Germans (this name lives on in the Robsonstrasse Hotel on the street). At one time, the city had placed streetsigns reading “Robsonstrasse” though these were placed after the German presence in the area had largely vanished.

Robson Street was featured on an old edition of the Canadian Monopoly board as one of the two most expensive properties.

Captain Marvel crashes into the big screen with a flurry of explosions. The titular superheroine (Brie Larson) embodies the toughest bruiser imaginable as she fistfights, flies, and shoots her way through the stratosphere without so much as a glance over her shoulder to watch the carnage. This endless action ride pauses momentarily only for laughs and character development as new friends bond.

Sandwiched between two epic intergalactic films that tie the entire Marvel Universe together, Captain Marvel incorporates the first female lead in a Marvel film, focusing on the story of the origins of the superheroine. It weaves several different epic superhero stories together, throwing them into a universal battle of good vs. evil, ultimately deciding all their fates, as well as everyone in existence. The stakes are astronomical.

The film requires a healthy attention span along with plenty of focus. The element of being thrown into the 1990’s could throw off devoted fans of the series. But in so doing, we discover that the infinity war may be connected to Captain Marvel’s alter ego on Earth, Carol Danvers.

Being thrust into this infinity war is a lot for one woman to bear, no matter how heroic she may be. But Captain Marvel gets some early advice from her mentor Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) to keep her potentially dangerous emotions in check. The humans think differently, suggesting that these feelings are what make you a hero. There are plenty of opportunities for her to develop emotionally upon discovering that she may have led a significant life on Earth prior to becoming a fighter pilot for the Kree (alien good guys).

Captain Marvel contains cutting-edge special effects so realistic, it’s hard to distinguish what’s real from what’s been altered. Of note are the younger visage of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) with both eyes intact, as well as a full head of hair, and a scene-stealing CGI alien/best friend/copilot/cat, aptly named Goose.

Captain Marvel struggles with two very tough cinematic challenges in addition to her numerous foes. First, this film falls between the two other major Avengers Infinity War movies. With so many new characters mandatory for her to befriend, it draws focus away from the story of her provenance. Second, Marvel sometimes dips into “Superman territory,” where the protagonist is so invincible that the audience isn’t emotionally invested because there’s no way for the character to die.

To spice up the mix, writing and directing partners Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Half Nelson, Sugar) bring their indie film brand of mixing comedy and emotion to a genre traditionally void of these things. Although it broadens its appeal to a wider audience, the frenetic action is non-stop. Adding the pop grunge soundtrack including: Nirvana, Garbage, and No Doubt is a sly trick to tie together 90’s cultural themes in Captain Marvel’s coming-of-age story.

Ultimately, with so many thrills, laughs, and terse combat scenes, the lack of any romance is a breath of fresh air. This fierce girl-power flick could be a stand-alone launch for the new Captain Marvel series, and it’s an absolute must-see for fans of the Marvel Universe.

David Byrne once said, “However we are, we don’t know how to be another way. That’s the way we are.” It might sound simple and entirely self-explanatory, but for those on the Autism spectrum, this was, in fact, something that needed saying. Byrne is, and always has been, a champion of individualism. It is from this viewpoint of individuality and its place in the glowing kaleidoscopic spectrum of humanity at large that Byrne’s artistic output derives.

David Byrne has what he describes as “mild asperges”. This outward declaration and open representation of the condition in the public eye would be something to rejoice in itself for the misunderstood Autism community. But the fact that he has championed the condition as a vital aspect of his artistry has served as a glowing declaration of the power of inclusivity and recognising the beauty in our differences, rather than sheltering in the dower domain of conformity.

People on the autistic spectrum often have difficulty with conventional social interaction. The keyword being ‘conventional’, as it is not the case that they cannot communicate emotionally; they simply have a different way of processing the world. Byrne found that for him, expression was easier through performance. He told the BBC, “when you have trouble expressing yourself socially through the normal channels, you find other ways to do that.” Byrne’s workaround just so happened to be one of the most joyous forms of artistic expression that the world has ever seen, one which has been an ever-present boon to life since Talking Heads first burst onto the scene, like a beatific shot to the arm, in 1977.

“I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching.” This unique style was not limited to his performance on stage. It also permeates his songwriting. He stands outside of the norm and observes it without cynicism but equally without compromise. And thusly, like a musical alchemist, he has been able to make joyous pieces of pop perfection that probe deeply at the human comedy without doing anything other than extolling the beauty and illuminating the bad.

He has not achieved this ginormous feat in any other way than being himself and not changing one modicum about his vision to fall into the line of conformity. He has never sequestered his Aspergers to perform; he takes it on stage with him. This has not been without difficulty, but as he has explained to the BBC about being onstage, “There is something about the attention being directed to you, but you’re kind of anonymous,” that he finds liberating. Byrne has relished in this perceived onstage anonymity.

Likewise, he has spoken about how there are inherent difficulties associated with the condition. “Expression just comes out,” he clarified, “but when you have to deal with all the other things that come along with it, it can be really hard.” Once more, however, the take-home message is that these challenges are no more difficult to overcome for people on the spectrum than other people face in separate areas of daily life. Life for all of us has its pitfalls and windfalls as we bumble on through it; people on the spectrum traverse that same journey, enjoying the glorious vistas and bracing the potholes, they simply have a different neurotype as they travel. The windfall of the condition for Byrne is that he has “no problem on being alone and focussing on something,” he told 3 Girls, 1 Kieth podcast, “That’s my superpower. I can use this in my way.”

Away from the music, the movie David Byrne co-wrote and directed, True Stories, is often touted as the most authentic expression of Autism in cinema. The hyper-fixation of a man desperately trying to fit in is an example of ‘Autistic Masking’. This self-observation is something Byrne has spoken about many times in interviews, stating the maxim: “Is this something I should be doing?” In cinema, as in music, Byrne elucidated these feelings in an exuberantly humanised way.

In short, when David Byrne and Talking Heads came along, they were not only unique, they were as refreshing as a cold breeze — there was an enchantment to what they were doing, which has remained. Byrne continues to propagate something almost inconceivable yet beautifully simple; he is wholeheartedly himself, and he defiantly embodies the dichotomy of vulnerability and spiritual sanctity that comes with that emboldened stance (and I’m not just talking about his scaffolded suits). His triumph in this regard has not only been something to celebrate amongst the Autistic community, but something to celebrate for all of us at large. As he once said himself, “We all don’t have to be the same.”

Robot Carnival has been called “The Fantasia of anime,” and with good reason, too. Every bit of this gem of a movie is filled with the same wonder and imagination of the classic Disney film with that special anime touch. Composed of nine shorts directed by some truly imaginative anime directors and supervised by Otomo “Steamboy” Katsuhiro, this anime has several great stories.

Otomo Katushiro and Fukushima Atsuko (Kiki’s Delivery Service) co-direct the fun and cataclysmic opening and closing segments that explain why this movie is called Robot Carnival. Omori Hidetoshi’s (Zeta Gundam, Dan Doh!!) Deprive is an ’80s action anime told in nine minutes, highlighted by cool fight scenes and bizarre design work. Morimoto Koji (Noiseman Sound Insect, Memories‘ Magnetic Rose) creates a dark and Gothic atmosphere with Franken’s Gears, but it lacks a story. Mao Lamdo’s Cloud is the only low point in this series, as it’s a collection of still images with one moving character that looks pleasing but lacks a narrative. Kitazume Hiroyuki’s (Sol Bianca) Starlight Angel is a flighty, adolescent love story that can bring a smile to the viewer, despite the cheesy music. Umetsu Yasuomi (Kite, Mezzo Forte) surprises with a thoughtful sci-fi, coming-of-age story with Presence, something he seemed incapable of doing. Nakamura Takashi (Fantastic Children) conducts a metallically-dark and mechanically-creepy little sequence called Chicken Man and Red Neck that sets the groundwork for his later pet project, A Tree of Palme. Finally, Kitakubo Hiroyuki (Roujin Z, Golden Boy) directs my favorite, A Tale of Two Robots, a hilarious send-up to the old mecha shows of the ’70s and samurai flicks of the ’60s.

The only real downside to this film is the music. Much of it sounds like stuff you’d hear from an old Nintendo game. This is a shame, seeing as how the score was composed by none other than Hisaishi Jo. To say that the man has done better would be an understatement. Seeing as how all but two of the segments do not use dialogue, the use of swanky visuals with corny music hampers the experience.

There will be some segments people will like and dislike, but as a whole the film is a gem. It’s a series of inviting worlds and striking visuals that any otaku should feel privileged to see, no matter how old or young. It is very much worth the price of admission.

There is perhaps no more controversial neurological disorder than autism, a mysterious ailment which affects the nerve pathways and causes various developmental disabilities. The severity of autism is highly variable – a little less than half of sufferers lack the communication skills to function successfully in society, but many, such as those with Asperger’s Syndrome (a form on the autism spectrum) have enjoyed very productive lives.

Science has yet to fully grasp the mechanism of action or the cause of autism, although theories abound from childhood inoculations to genetic mutations. A captivating symptom of this disorder in some subjects is an intense, single-minded focus, a savant “genius” in some certain area, such as that exhibited by the Dustin Hoffman character in the movie “Rain Man,” who had a extraordinary affinity for numbers. Although autism was not fully described until the 20th century, history is full of suspected cases, many of which are amongst the most celebrated and brilliant minds to have ever existed. Below are ten famous personalities alleged to have had disorders on the autism spectrum.

10. Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875)

Andersen was a Danish author known for his children’s fairy tales, such as “The Ugly Duckling” and “The Little Mermaid” (which is a heart-wrenching tragedy when compared with the Disney version). As a child, he was gangly and effeminate, and prone to strange tantrums. His journals indicate a strange pattern of pining after unattainable men and women, and a privately enforced celibacy early in life. Upon close examination, his stories seem to be indicative of a deep inner turmoil, often featuring strange or misunderstood characters who are not always fortunate enough to find redemption.

9. Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)

Born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Carroll was another children’s author who seemed to bear certain autistic trademarks. Most famous for his “Alice in Wonderland” stories, he had a stammer which likely exacerbated his lack of social skills. Like many people touched by autism, he exhibited great mathematical acumen and was a minor inventor. Although he had some adult friends, Carroll seemed to much enjoy the company of children, to the point where some historians allege that he may have been a pedophile, although it may have just been that with his poor communicative abilities he found it easier to interact with kids. He took many nude pictures of underage girls, although the connotations of such activity were not so severe at the time as they are today. Adding to the mystery, large portions of his journals were removed after his death, leading some to believe they detailed aberrant, possibly criminal behavior.

8. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Perhaps the greatest composer the world has ever known, Mozart was an accomplished musician from the age of four or five, and by his teenage years was a renowned genius, exhibiting much of that narrow focus often found in autistic patients. A strange, impulsive little man, he favored bawdy adolescent bathroom humor and even wrote songs with scatological lyrics. Although some historians purport that he may have been autistic, it seems unlikely – Mozart was a social buttery, and seemed to dislike spending time alone. There is, however, some evidence that he had at least a touch of the disorder – many autistics, who are often sensitive to sound, become extremely responsive to the music of Mozart – so much so that it is used in therapy.

7. Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)

A celebrated philosopher, Wittgenstein hailed from one of the richest and most disturbed families in Austria. His father was an intensely unpleasant man, and three of Ludwig’s brothers committed suicide. Like Lewis Carroll, he had a stutter and awful social skills. His most famous work, “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” is often seen as a classic example of autistic thought processes. He was an irritable man and claimed that he failed to see the “humanity” in other people. Philosophical pursuits in general seem to attract that autistic intellect – other sufferers may have included Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre. In fact, Sartre’s most famous quote, “Hell is other people” seems to sum up the harsh reality of autism in one fell swoop.

6. Michelangelo Di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564)

One of the great scions of the High Renaissance movement, Michelangelo is best known as the sculptor of David and the painter of the ceiling at the Sistine Chapel. He was known for his brusque manner and vile personal hygiene, preferring to throw himself wholesale into his work rather than engage in any kind of social niceties. Although he was relatively wealthy, he had little interest in material things. His contemporaries described him as both bizarre and terrible, all eccentricities which might well be easily explained by a diagnosis of autism.

5. Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999)

An American film director with such important works as “A Clockwork Orange,” “Dr. Strangelove,” and “2001: A Space Odyssey” under his belt, Kubrick was known as a coldblooded perfectionist, often requiring dozens of takes to get a scene the way he wanted it. During the filming of “The Shining,” his intense demands tormented stars Jack Nicholson and Shelly Duvall, to the point that Duvall’s hair began falling out. Somewhat reclusive, he was known for hoarding animals and being a chess mastermind. Interviews with those closest to him indicate he was cheap, uncomplimentary, and showed a marked lack of empathy toward collaborators. Although reports exist countering these allegations of misanthropy, it seems that some of Kubrick’s ruthless genius may be due to certain autistic traits.

4. James Joyce (1882-1941)

Irish novelist Joyce is remembered primarily for his book “Ulysses,” an enigmatic re-telling of “The Odyssey” and the scourge of literature students worldwide. In youth he exhibited extreme intelligence and strange phobias. Joyce’s eccentricity and self-centeredness are made quite apparent in a dissection of his writings. While unarguably brilliant, works such as “Ulysses” and “Finnegan’s Wake” are composed in a style that is intentionally difficult to approach. Some scholars claim that he wrote mainly to flummox readers, asserting a perhaps autistic distance between himself and society. In an interview for Harper’s Magazine, he stated “The demand that I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole Life to reading my works.”

3. Nikola Tesla (1856-1943)

An ethnic Serb born in present day Croatia, Tesla was a foremost inventor and engineer, more brilliant by far than his contemporary Edison, who ultimately exploited him and stole many of his ideas. More eccentric by far than any other personality on this list, Tesla harbored a crippling series of phobias, maintained his celibacy, had a sensitivity to light and sound, and was intensely focused on numbers (especially the number three – he wouldn’t stay in a room whose number was not divisible by three). He was very soft spoken, but could be nasty in defense of his strange beliefs. While generally reclusive and fanatically driven by his work, he could grandstand and was good friends with Mark Twain in his middle years. While most certainly obsessive compulsive, many of his behaviors could also be seen in an autistic light. As he aged, he became even more bizarre, ultimately earning the derision of the scientific community and dying alone in a hotel room, nearly penniless.

2. Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

One of the most brilliant men of this, or any, era, Einstein’s contributions to physics and humanity in general cannot be overlooked. There are a lot of conflicting accounts regarding his youth (the popular rumor that he failed math in school is an outright lie), but reports indicate he was a very technically minded, somewhat aloof child. His research, of course, was of the most abstruse, imaginative sort, hinging on details that someone with Asperger’s could easily find reason to focus upon. After the death of his wife, he become almost completely unconcerned with his physical appearance (a quirk made more manifest in an era of formality), especially his wild hair. However, Einstein seemed to have had little difficulty socializing as an adult – although he did not openly relish the trappings of his fame, he was known for various romantic trysts even late in life.

1. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

The third President of the United States, and the preeminent political scientist amongst the Founding Fathers. Despite authoring the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson’s eloquence did not extend to oratorical skills. Described sometimes as painfully shy and averse to making eye contact – fellow statesman Alexander Hamilton once called him “shifty eyed” – Jefferson displayed many of the characteristics common to Asperger’s Syndrome. Like many others, he was an inventor and compulsive mathematician, and seemed obsessed with constant additions and tweaks on his Monticello estate. He had stilted body language, exacting attention to detail, odd compulsions, and often appeared unkempt. His relationship with slave Sally Hemings might also be explained by Asperger’s; it would probably have been easier for him to be intimate with a woman with whom he did not have to engage in the exacting social conventions of the day.

Grunya Sukhareva characterized autism nearly two decades before Austrian doctors Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger. So why did the latter get all the credit?

It was 1924 when the 12-year-old boy was brought to the Moscow clinic for an evaluation. By all accounts, he was different from his peers. Other people did not interest him much, and he preferred the company of adults to that of children his own age. He never played with toys: He had taught himself to read by age 5 and spent his days reading everything he could instead. Thin and slouching, the boy moved slowly and awkwardly. He also suffered from anxiety and frequent stomachaches.

At the clinic, a gifted young doctor, Grunya Efimovna Sukhareva, saw the boy. Caring and attentive, she observed him with a keen eye, noting that he was “highly intelligent” and liked to engage in philosophical discussions. By way of a diagnosis, she described him as “an introverted type, with an autistic proclivity into himself.”

‘Autistic’ was a relatively new adjective in psychiatry at the time. About a decade earlier, Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler had coined the term to describe the social withdrawal and detachment from reality often seen in children with schizophrenia. Sukhareva’s characterization came nearly two decades before Austrian doctors Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger published what have long been considered to be the first clinical accounts of autism. At first, Sukhareva used ‘autistic’ in the same way Bleuler did — but as she started to see other children with this trait, she decided to try to characterize it more fully.

Over the course of the following year, she identified five more boys with what she described as “autistic tendencies.” All five also showed a preference for their own inner world, yet each had his own peculiarities or talents. One was an extraordinarily gifted violinist but struggled socially; another had an exceptional memory for numbers but could not recognize faces; yet another had imaginary friends who lived in the fireplace. None were popular with other children, she noted, and some saw peer interaction as useless: “They are too loud,” one boy said. “They hinder my thinking.”

In 1925, Sukhareva published a paper describing in detail the autistic features the six boys shared. Her descriptions, though simple enough for a nonspecialist to understand, were remarkably prescient.

“Basically, she described the criteria in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5),” says Irina Manouilenko, a psychiatrist who runs a clinic in Stockholm, Sweden. Manouilenko translated Sukhareva’s original descriptions from Russian to English in 2013 and then compared them with the diagnostic criteria described in the DSM-5. The similarities between the two left Manouilenko in awe. “When you start looking at it all systematically, it’s very impressive,” she says.

For example, what the DSM-5 describes as social deficits, Sukhareva wrote about as a “flattened affective life,” “lack of facial expressiveness and expressive movements” and “keeping apart from their peers.” What the diagnostic manual portrays as stereotyped or repetitive behaviors, restricted interests and sensory sensitivities, Sukhareva explained as “talking in stereotypic ways,” with “strong interests pursued exclusively” and sensitivities to specific noises or smells. In her analysis, Manouilenko was able to match each of the manual’s criteria to one or more of Sukhareva’s observations.

Historians are beginning to ponder why it took nearly a century for the DSM-5 — published in 2013 after years of debate — to arrive back at something so close to Sukhareva’s list. They have found that Sukhareva isn’t the only clinician whose research was overlooked or lost before autism was described in the DSM-III. As more archival material is digitized, it’s becoming clear that Kanner and Asperger may need to share credit for the ‘discovery’ of autism — and that the condition’s history could be as complex as its biology.

Despite her relative obscurity in the West, Sukhareva is “the most well-known name in child psychiatry” in Russia, says Alexander Goryunov, lead researcher in the child and adolescent psychiatry department at the Mental Health Research Center in Moscow. In 2011, on the 120th anniversary of Sukhareva’s birth, the Neurology and Psychiatry Journal, of which Goryunov is executive editor, reviewed her wide-ranging contributions to the field. Sukhareva published more than 150 papers, six monographs and several textbooks on topics as diverse as intellectual disability, schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder, among other conditions. She was also a gifted teacher and mentored scores of doctoral students.

Goryunov describes Sukhareva as a “versatile specialist.” After graduating from medical school in Kiev in 1915, Sukhareva joined a team of epidemiologists that traveled to areas in the Ukraine affected by outbreaks of encephalitis and other infectious diseases. But when the Russian Revolution broke out two years later and medical professionals fled or died in battle, she joined Kiev’s psychiatric hospital. The country faced a huge shortage of doctors, and qualified medics such as Sukhareva often moved wherever they were needed most.

In 1921, Sukhareva relocated to the Psycho-Neurological and Pedagogical Sanatorium School of the Institute of Physical Training and Medical Pedology in Moscow. (‘Pedology’ was a Russian term for a combination of pedagogy, psychology and medicine.) The government opened the sanatorium to help the country’s many children who had been orphaned, displaced or traumatized by World War I, the revolution, the ensuing civil war or the deadly Spanish flu epidemic. As its long-winded name suggests, it was no ordinary clinic. It took a more scientific approach to understanding child development than most other clinics at the time. Children with serious problems lived at the sanatorium for two to three years, during which time they received social- and motor-skills training. They took classes in gymnastics, drawing and woodwork, played team games and went on group outings to zoos and other public places. At the end of the intensive program, many had made enough progress to be able to join regular schools or music conservatories.

The socialist government covered all costs for this intensive intervention, viewing child-rearing as important for society’s well-being. And the clinicians could observe children in a myriad of contexts, gaining a nuanced picture of their strengths and weaknesses.

That setup may have helped Sukhareva to describe autistic traits as accurately as she did. Her assessments were extraordinarily detailed. They included the children’s physical health, noting hemoglobin counts, muscle tone, gastric health, skin conditions and more. She documented small changes in their behavior, such as a lack of smiles, excessive movements, a nasal voice or what sparked a tantrum — in one case, seeing a funeral procession go by. And she spoke with many family members — parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles — observing that some atypical behaviors ran in families. Her descriptions were so vivid, readers could recognize “each [child] in the street, or at least in a classroom,” Manouilenko says.

Another facility like the sanatorium, dubbed the Forest School, housed dozens of children on the outskirts of Moscow. Altogether, the staff evaluated about 1,000 children over a period of a few years. Throughout her life, Sukhareva launched similar schools all over the country. But her reach stopped at the borders, hindered in part by political and language barriers. Only a small fraction of Russian research from that time was translated into other languages besides German. And although her 1925 paper on autism traits appeared in German the following year, the translation butchered her name, misspelling it as “Ssucharewa.” That paper did not reach the English-speaking world until 1996, some 15 years after Sukhareva’s death, when British child psychiatrist Sula Wolff stumbled upon it.

There is another, darker reason why Sukhareva’s work may have been lost for so long, Manouilenko says. Given the limited number of psychiatry journals at the time, it is possible that Asperger, for whom Asperger syndrome was named, read Sukhareva’s paper in German and chose not to cite it. Earlier this year, historians Edith Sheffer and Herwig Czech independently reported that they had found evidence of Asperger’s cooperation with the Nazi Party, and that he may have sent dozens of disabled children to be euthanized. Sukhareva was Jewish, and Asperger may not have wanted to give her credit. Manouilenko offers a more benign possibility: Given Asperger’s position, he may not have been permitted or felt able to credit Sukhareva.

A story not unlike Sukhareva’s played out in Vienna at around the same time that she was making her observations about autism. Two young Jewish doctors, physician Georg Frankl and psychologist Anni Weiss, worked at a child psychiatry clinic similar to the sanatorium in Moscow. The head psychiatrist at the Vienna clinic, Erwin Lazar, believed that doctors should play with children to understand their behavior, and the facility had 21 beds to accommodate children with severe problems. By closely observing those children, Frankl and Weiss also described autistic traits in a way we would recognize today. And they did so at least a decade before Kanner and Asperger did.

In the early to mid-1930s, Frankl and Weiss wrote a number of reports describing children who were socially withdrawn, spoke in atypical ways and showed a fondness for particular objects and routines. They described classic autism features: Frankl pointed out a “disconnect between facial expressions, body language and speech,” and Weiss zeroed in on “hidden intelligence, fixations and communication impairments,” according to John Elder Robison, a scholar in residence at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Unlike Sukhareva, neither one explicitly used the word ‘autistic’ in their writing, but it may have entered their conversations, says Robison, who is autistic.

When Lazar died in 1932, Frankl became senior psychiatrist at the clinic, and a 25-year-old pediatrician named Hans Asperger joined the clinic and likely trained under him. Soon after, Hitler came to power, and the new regime looked for opportunities to get rid of Jewish doctors. Weiss spoke English and, decamping to America, found a position as a child guidance associate at Columbia University in New York.

Once she had settled in, she tried to find a way for Frankl to join her — and sought help from Kanner, then a rising star at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Kanner, an Austrian-Hungarian Jew, had lived in Berlin and understood the threat of the Nazi takeover. Altogether, he helped about 200 Jewish doctors, Frankl included, escape from Europe. Frankl married Weiss six days after he arrived in the United States in 1937.

After his arrival, Frankl worked with Kanner at Johns Hopkins. In 1943, they each published a paper in the journal Nervous Child, both focused on communication difficulties in young children — but, crucially, the two papers bore different titles. Frankl’s work was “Language and affective contact,” whereas Kanner’s was “Autistic disturbances of affective contact.” From that point on, the word ‘autism,’ so entered into American psychiatric vocabulary, became associated with Kanner’s name.

A few months later, Asperger started using the term autistic, publishing a paper with the title “Die ‘Autistischen Psychopathen’ im Kindesalter,” or “The ‘Autistic Psychopaths’ in Childhood,” in June 1944. At the time, both Kanner and Asperger maintained that their work was separate and distinct, but modern scholars have wondered whether one plagiarized from the other. Some, including Steve Silberman in his book “Neurotribes,” blamed Kanner, suggesting that he had lured Frankl away from the Vienna clinic, along with some of his ideas. John Donvan and Caren Zucker, co-authors of “In a Different Key,” as well as Robison, refute that notion in their own writings. But Robison points out that both men interacted with Frankl and Weiss, who remained uncredited.

In 1941, Frankl left Johns Hopkins and took a job as director of the Buffalo Guidance Center in upstate New York. He and Weiss moved on with their lives, shifting their interests away from academic work and the subject they had covered so promisingly in their youth.

If political circumstances had been different, Frankl and Weiss might have made other important discoveries about autism. If nothing else, their journey helped transfer seeds of knowledge from Vienna — and possibly Russia — across the ocean, where they found fertile soil.

Working in different political, cultural and research settings might have influenced how each of these researchers perceived autism. Asperger, who focused on people at the mild end of the spectrum, saw it as a largely behavioral problem, which could be caused by a child’s environment and ‘corrected’ through therapy. By contrast, Sukhareva, Frankl and, subsequently, Kanner viewed it as a neurobiological condition people are born with.

Ultimately, it took a spectrum of these researchers to define autism’s full spectrum.

Sukhareva was ahead of her time in many ways. She started to disentangle autism from childhood schizophrenia during the 1950s, nearly 30 years before they were listed as separate conditions in the DSM-III. Half a century before brain scans started to implicate specific regions in the condition, she postulated that the cerebellum, basal ganglia and frontal lobes might be involved. According to Manouilenko, whose own work involves brain imaging, that’s exactly what research is revealing now.

Because Sukhareva saw autism as rooted in brain development, she never subscribed to the widespread belief that took hold in the 1940s that autism might be caused by ‘refrigerator mothers’ tending to their children in a cold and unemotional way. She never had children of her own but may have had a more intuitive take on mother-child relationships than some male clinicians.

In the original Russian, her writing is official in tone but always warm, and it shows how much she cared for the clinic’s children — in some cases, describing them as she might have her own family members. Her notes often describe with almost maternal pride how a child had become physically stronger, less moody, more social or less anxious under her care. And she always made mention of a child’s skills — some were “gifted musically,” “talented in science and technology” or wrote “insightful poetry” — alongside their behavioral challenges.

Like any parent, Sukhareva wrote that her goal was to help the children “stay connected with real life, its tempo and movement.” Given her sensitivity and intuition as a clinician, it’s unfortunate that the research community in the West was not connected with her ideas during her life. “It’s impressive how she managed to achieve all of this,” Manouilenko says. “She didn’t have her own family, so she gave her entire life to studying science and teaching.”

The K-drama breeds acceptance and empathy for those who live with ASD, and that itself is cause for celebration.

My name is Woo Young-woo, whether it’s read straight or flipped. Kayak, deed, rotator, noon, racecar, Woo Young-woo. Yeoksam Station (station is translated to yeok in Korean).” Our titular protagonist lists out other palindromes, similar to that of her name, to introduce herself. The first impression is crucial to know who someone is as a person – and for Young-woo (Park Eun-bin), a 27-year-old rookie attorney with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), it tells us almost everything we need to know about her, as she puts herself: “I’m not an ordinary attorney.”

Her passion for the law began at the mere age of five, the same day she was first diagnosed with ASD. She grew up as the only child to a single father named Woo Gwang-ho (Jeon Bae-su), who had been pursuing a law degree at Seoul National University at the time. Despite not being able to communicate on a level that was on par with the rest of her peers, Young-woo had read and memorised every single line in her father’s law textbooks, unbeknownst to him until he had gotten into a physical altercation with his landlord over a misunderstanding.

Young-woo, growing increasingly overstimulated and panicked, began regurgitating the criminal laws against inflicting bodily injury upon others, complete with the legal penalties if the aggressor were to ever be found guilty of such an offence. All Gwang-ho could do was stare at his daughter in shock – not only did she just recite the laws applicable to their situation verbatim, it was also her first time speaking at all.

Fast forward to two decades later, and we bear witness to how Young-woo has learned to adapt to the world around her, following her meticulously structured routine on the morning of her first day as a rookie attorney at Hanbada Law Firm. Aside from her passion for law, to say that she loves whales might be a severe understatement. Everything from her room slippers to framed pictures are imbued with imagery of these aquatic mammals, and she’s a repository of obscure whale knowledge personified. She also likes her food prepared a specific way; for example, her father makes a special “Woo Young-woo kimbap”, where all the ingredients are carefully wrapped between layers of rice and seaweed, which allow her to see exactly what’s been put inside in order to prevent surprise from unfamiliar flavours or textures.

Unfortunately for Young-woo, life isn’t always as unexacting as whales and kimbap. She bears the brunt of all sorts of ableism in her day-to-day life as an adult. But perhaps the most jarring of all is from her new supervisor, lawyer Jung Myeong-seok (Kang Ki-young), who ostracises her as soon as she shows signs of her neurodivergence. In spite of her unmistakable credentials and aptitude for the role, he is apprehensive enough to call for a meeting with the law firm’s chief executive, going so far as to question CEO Han’s (Baek Ji-won) judgement, stating that “she’s different from me”.

Of course, Young-woo manages to continuously rise against the odds. Despite Myung-seok’s oversight of her ability as a lawyer, she steps up to the plate with her flawless memory of both the law and case materials to bridge gaps in her first-ever case as a Hanbada attorney, areas where even her superiors had overlooked. Not only was she awarded the chance to prove both Myung-seok and her peers at the firm wrong about her capacity as an attorney, she also managed to alleviate her elderly client of a false murder charge.

As a legal procedural, Extraordinary Attorney Woo’s approach to this usually uninspired genre is distinctive. While many legal K-drama forebears have dabbled in dramatic, unyielding explorations of ferocity in the courtroom, this series chooses to shine a buoyant light on the matters of the law instead, as told through the innocent eyes of Young-woo.

Extraordinary Attorney Woo spurs an overarching storyline to allow for the characterisation of Young-woo’s adaptability to each episodic case and client of various circumstances to take centre stage. The obstacles stacked against her, be it jealous colleagues or a disrespectful opposing counsel, all fail to sway her unadulterated passion for and focus on her job. Park Eun-bin’s performance as Young-woo is a remarkable indicator of her acting chops as she steps into the shoes of an autistic character, the representation of which is rare within the stratosphere of Korean entertainment itself.

Media depictions of autism spectrum disorder have always been a toss-up – they’re either glorified as socially awkward yet misunderstood geniuses with savant-like abilities, or written off as flat side characters written in to showcase the uglier, undesirable sides to ASD – but if there is anything to be said about Extraordinary Attorney Woo, it’s that Young-woo’s characterisation tends to lean towards the former.

Two episodes in, the series is already sending the message that there is an expectation for neurodivergent people to be able to compensate for their undesirable traits by being natural-born prodigies – not entirely dissimilar to what many underrepresented minorities have to go through both in fictional works and in real life. It might be too early to predict the depths writer Moon Ji-won is willing to explore in Extraordinary Attorney Woo, but there remains ample space to do so; all we can do as the audience is to hold out hope that this space will be well-utilised.

Extraordinary Attorney Woo is a witty, light watch that rarely demands an understanding of the law nor ASD for viewers to appreciate. It holds up the mirror for those of us, like the people Young-woo crosses paths with, to reflect on our own behaviours and misconceptions about neurodivergence. The show – while not entirely flawless in its depictions so far – breeds acceptance and empathy for those who live with ASD, and that itself is cause for celebration.

New episodes of Extraordinary Attorney Woo are available every Wednesday and Thursday on South Korean streaming platform ENA, as well as on Netflix in select regions.