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Request from Professor Richard Grinker

I am seeking parents or guardians to interview by telephone in connection with a book I am writing on autism and treatment decisions. This is a subject of both intellectual and personal interest to me, as I am both a medical anthropologist and the father of a teenage girl with autism.

I should provide a little background information. I received my Ph.D. in anthropology at Harvard University, where I specialized in the study of marginalied populations. I worked primarily in Congo with the Efe (Pygmies) before spending several years studying north Korean defectors and their difficulties assimilating into South Korea. But when my daughter Isabel was diagnosed with autism I began to work specifically on autism, and wrote a book, Unstrange Minds (now published in the UK by Icon Books under the title Isabel’s World), to explore the many positive directions of autism science and autism awareness over the past several decades. Isabel was born in 1991, just when autism started to become a more common diagnosis or classification, and in my book I describe the benefits of increased awareness for children and adults like Isabel, in North America but also in many other countries. With funding from the National Institute of Mental Health, Autism Speaks, and the Children’s Brain Research Foundation, I am now completing the first ever prevalence study of autism spectrum disorders in South Korea, starting an incidence study in South Korea as well, and beginning a project on treatment disparities between white and Latino populations in northern California.

The book for which I am now interviewing will explore the complex ways people navigate available knowledge on therapeutic interventions for several childhood conditions, but my focus is on autism. How do parents negotiate between what they learn from different practitioners, friends, family, and neighbors? How do parents judge the information they gather through scientific, Internet, and popular media sources? How much do parents spend on treatments? And how are therapies supported or limited by the total social contexts in which autistic children live today?

I am available to conduct interviews almost anytime. People who are interested may reach me easily at my university email address: rgrink@gwu.edu

I very much appreciate any efforts to assist in my project.

Sincerely yours,

Roy R. Grinker, Ph.D.
Professor of Anthropology and the Human Sciences
The George Washington University
Washington, D.C. 20052
U.S.A.

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Last Updated : 04/08/2009 Back to Top

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Request from Professor Richard Grinker