Of Mice and men
In this TED Talk, Aditi Shankardass goes in to depth about developmental disorders and tells that 50% of children diagnosed as autistic are misdiagnosed. She explains that developmental disorders such as autism are commonly based on behavior alone without looking to the brain for discern the problem. In her argument, she claims that in order to gain a more accurate neurological diagnosis, EEGs are required to test children based on measuring their brain waves. These EEGs surprisingly found that many children diagnosed were not autistic after all and were actually experiencing hidden brain seizures that account for "autistic" behavior such as zoning out and not being able to comprehend. A child with these seizures can recover to a normal brain function with the use of medicine. This is an interesting discovery because Lennie from Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is mentally retarded and treated unfairly throughout the novel. Perhaps if there had been an understanding of mental disorder at the time the book is set in, then Lennie would not have been killed nor Curly's wife. If there had been accurate ways to test for developmental disorders then Lennie would have gotten the treatment he needed. There is the possibility that Lennie was not truly developmentally disadvantaged at all. He could have been suffering from hidden brain seizures that contributed to his zoning out, short term memory loss, and his ignorance he has to his own physical power. He could have gotten medication to treat this that could have resulted in a complete recovery that would have left many unfortunate creatures such as mice, a puppy, and a human alive.