The historiography of neurodivergence helps us understand how and why the history of the discovery of autism was interpreted differently over time, as well as gives us information about the personages and historical events of its past.
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David Dobbs
For 40 years, Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger have dominated virtually every story about the ‘pioneers of autism research.’ These two men published in 1943 and 1944, respectively, what were long accepted as the first descriptions of, as Kanner’s seminal paper claimed, “children whose condition differs … markedly and uniquely from anything reported so far.” Both papers are absorbing, touching and authoritative. Both describe young people whose challenges defied the known diagnoses of the time but clearly fall into what we now call autism. And both offered a new diagnostic category for such people. Kanner’s 1943 paper, “Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact,” drew almost immediate attention. Within a year, he renamed the condition these children shared, dubbing it ‘early infantile autism,’ which soon became known as ‘autism’ or ‘Kanner’s syndrome.’ His articulation of the condition, based on observations of 11 children he and his associates treated in his Baltimore, Maryland, clinic, remained the standard well into the 1980s and involved three elements: Autism was a condition marked by: (1) emergence early in childhood, (2) deficits in communication and social interaction, and (3) restricted or repetitive behaviors and a desire for sameness. Even today, these three elements anchor the official diagnostic criteria in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, as well as the widely used International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems. Continue reading
Article Info
The Transmitter (2024)
The new history of autism by David Dobbs
Dr. Sula Wolff
Since its discovery 60 years ago, autism has been puzzling, fascinating and massively researched. It has generated two international Journals: The Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, which started life in 1971 as The Journal of Autism and Childhood Schizophrenia, with Leo Kanner and Stella Chess as its foundation editors; and Autism: the International Journal of Research and Practice which first appeared in 1997. A further two journals dedicated to autism are Focus on Autism and other Developmental Disabilities, first published in 1985, offering practical articles on care, treatment and education for a multidisciplinary readership and The International Autism Research Review started in 1987. In 2001 the University of Birmingham in collaboration with the West Midlands Autistic Society and the Autism Services Accreditation Programme initiated the journal Good Autism Practice. All this in addition to many publications by parent organizations! Continue reading
Article Info
Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry (2004)
13:201–208 DOI 10.1007/s00787-004-0363-5
The history of autism by Sula Wolff