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This is NPR's Life Kit, and I'm Lane Kappin-Levinson.

Let's start this episode with a reality check.

Whether you know it or not, you know somebody who's autistic.

So even if you think this doesn't affect you, it does affect you.

That's Eric Garcia, a senior Washington correspondent for The Independent and author of the book,

We're Not Broken, Changing the Autism Conversation.

If we have bad ideas about autism, then certainly that must lead to bad policies about autism,

because bad ideas beget bad policies.

Eric's autistic, and so knows the consequence of bad policies firsthand.

Policies that Eric says have wrongfully focused on finding a cure for autism.

Something he says autistic people don't want and never asked for.

So instead of prioritizing trying to fix them, prioritize what can you do to make their lives

better?

That's what Eric's book

sets out to do. It's a combination of myth-busting, memoir, historical context, field interviews,

and straight-up advice on how to better understand the autism spectrum, how to talk about it,

and why it impacts every one of us. It's really easy to get a lot of misinformation about autism

because it's such a contentious topic.

But what matters is getting the right information

...