Research Today

I can't help it, I'm a dedicated reader of the "To your good health" column in the Pioneer Press. Snooping other people's medical problems... I know, it's a bad habit.

But check out this question from Saturday's entry:

My stepdaughter has a 7-year-old son with physical and mental problems. She was told he has Asperger's disorder. I can't find any information on this. Is it hereditary? Is there a cure? Do vitamins and diet influence it?

My first reaction to this question was, How can you not have heard of Asperger's? And then I thought, Even if you haven't heard of it, how could you say you "can't find any information" on it? Putting "aspergers" into Google results 1.77 MILLION hits. If you asked any librarian to help you find information on it, s/he wouldn't even have to look it up. If you read a newspaper, you would know what it is at least generally.

But then I realized that this person must have absolutely no idea how to begin doing research of any kind, and doesn't have access to the Interweb. If you looked up Asperger's in a dictionary that's more than 10 years old (or in a printed encyclopedia), you wouldn't find it, because it only came into common usage around 2000 or so, if I remember correctly.

And it's not the easiest word in the world to guess the spelling of, either. If the doctor didn't spell it out, I can think of a bunch of creative alternate spellings. (Although Google still finds those misspellings and suggests the correct spelling.)

Anyway. Just one of those moments that makes me realize how divergent my experience is from many other people's in the age of the Interweb.