Autism - Description & Background

What is Autism? ››

What Causes Autism? ››

The History of Autism

The Triad of Impairments ››

The Continuum ››

Sensory Issues ››

Approaches ››

The History of Autism
Working in the Child Psychiatry Clinic at John Hopkins Hospital, Leo Kanner, a German-born psychiatrist published his first detailed report in 1943 titled Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact, based on similarities of case histories and behaviours of 11 children seen at the clinic since 1938.

A year later 1944 he published a brief paper identifying a childhood psychosis termed early infantile autism.

Before Kanner noticed and recorded a pattern of symptoms, such children would be classified as emotionally disturbed or mentally retarded. Kanner observed that these children often demonstrated capabilities that showed that they were not merely slow learners, yet they didn't fit the patterns of emotionally disturbed children.

Hans Asperger a German doctor essentially made the same discoveries at the same time (1944 one-year after Leo Kanner's first paper on autism), independently of Kanner. Dr. Asperger discussed individuals who exhibited much idiosyncratic, odd-like behaviour.

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