Douglas W. Maynard

Jason Turowetz

"As autism has become a widely prevalent diagnosis, we have grown increasingly desperate to understand it. Whether through baseless blame on vaccination or struggles to determine the potential genetic origins of autism, Americans have devoted a great deal of thought to what autism is and where it comes from. In "Autistic Intelligence," Douglas Maynard and Jason Turowetz focus on a different origin of autism: the diagnostic process. By turning to diagnosis, they ask us to begin with the basic questions of what norms we measure autistic behavior against, why we understand autistic behavior as disordered, and how we go about assigning that disorder to particular people. The authors take a close look at a clinic in which children are assessed for and diagnosed with autism. They spent hours in assessment evaluations with psychologists, pediatricians, parents, and children, and the resulting data enabled them to make plain the systems, language, and categories that clinicians rely upon when making their assessments. Those diagnostic tools determine the kind of information doctors can gather about children, and indeed, those assessments affect how children act. Autism is not a stable category, they show, but the result of an interpretive act. And in the process of diagnosing children with autism, they argue, we miss all of the unique contributions they make the world around them"--

Interaction, Individuality, and the Challenges of Diagnosis

Autistic Intelligence

John Heritage

This 2006 volume provides a comprehensive discussion of communication between doctors and patients in primary care consultations. It brings together a team of leading contributors from the fields of linguistics, sociology and medicine to describe each phase of the primary care consultation, identifying the distinctive tasks, goals and activities that make up each phase of primary care as social interaction. Using conversation analysis techniques, the authors analyze the sequential unfolding of a visit, and describe the dilemmas and conflicts faced by physicians and patients as they work through each of these activities. The result is a view of the medical encounter that takes the perspective of both physicians and patients in a way that is both rigorous and humane. Clear and comprehensive, this book will be essential reading for students and researchers in sociolinguistics, communication studies, sociology, and medicine.

Interaction between Primary Care Physicians and Patients

Communication in Medical Care

When we share or receive good or bad news, from ordinary events such as the birth of a child to public catastrophes such as 9/11, our "old" lives come to an end, and suddenly we enter a new world. In Bad News, Good News, Douglas W. Maynard explores how we tell and hear such news, and what's similar and different about our social experiences when the tidings are bad rather than good or vice versa. Uncovering vocal and nonvocal patterns in everyday conversations, clinics, and other organizations, Maynard shows practices by which people give and receive good or bad news, how they come to realize the news and their new world, how they suppress or express their emotions, and how they construct social relationships through the sharing of news. He also reveals the implications of his study for understanding public affairs in which transmitting news may influence society at large, and he provides recommendations for professionals and others on how to deliver bad or good tidings more effectively. For anyone who wants to understand the interactional facets of news delivery and receipt and their social implications, Bad News, Good News offers a wealth of scholarly insights and practical advice.

Douglas W. Maynard

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