It’s the place where smart people make smart machines work even smarter. But for the people who work in it, Silicon Valley (硅谷) is more than just a high technology hothouse. It’s also in the heart of sunny California, a great place to start a family and raise kids. What could be better?
But something is happening to the children. Up until the age of two they develop normally. Their proud parents watch and smile as they take their first steps and speak their first words. But then everything seems to go backwards. The children become locked into their own small world, unable to communicate at all.
They call it the “curse of Silicon Valley,” but the medical name for the condition is autism（孤独症）. It used to be thought that autism was a mental illness. Now doctors are sure that it is a disease transmitted genetically (遗传). It seems that the people leading the communications revolution are having children who cannot communicate at all.
But even the parents have trouble communicating. Asperger’s Syndrome (综合症) is connected with autism. People who have it are highly intelligent and often brilliant with numbers or systems but have no social skills, which makes Asperger’s sufferers into excellent computer professionals. Unfortunately, many of the children of two Asperger’s parents in Silicon Valley seem to be developing serious autism.
There is little anyone can do. And there is no cure in sight. Some argue that no cure should be found．“It may be that autistics are essentially (本质上) different from normal people, but that these differences make them valuable for the evolution (进化) of the human race,” says Dr Kirk Wilhelm of the University of California．“To remove the genes (基因) for autism could be terrible.
It seems that the children of Silicon Valley are paying the price of genius.
小题1:A person who has autism usually _____.
A．has difficulty in speaking
B．loses communication skills
C．has difficulty in working
D．hates people around小题2: Which of the following best explains “curse of Silicon Valley”?
A．The children are brought up in Silicon Valley.
B．Autism is just a result of working in Silicon Valley.
C．The children suffer from autism due to their parents in Silicon Valley.
D．Autism makes the children in Silicon Valley unable to communicate.小题3:Some people think that no cure of autism should be found because ______.
A．autism cannot be cured
B．autism isn’t a disease
C．harm will be done to the children
D．autism is necessary in some way小题4:What does the writer seem to feel about the children of Silicon Valley?
A．It’s a pity that they cannot have a normal life.
B．They are the pride of the human race.
C．They are sure to have a bright future.
D．It’s likely that they will have a normal life.
