Leo Kanner Autism

A. General Description/History of the disorder

Autism Spectrum Disorder is a developmental, chronic condition characterized by deficits in social communication and interaction in addition to restricted, repetitive behavior patterns (Corcoran & Walsh, 2016). According to Holaday (2012), the term “autism” was coined by a Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist in the early 1900s, and originally referred to an extreme withdrawal of oneself from social life. In 1943, Leo Kanner, who was working in the field of abnormal child development, made the first formal documentation of autism, noting descriptions of children who have neither the ability to use language for communication nor the ability to form usual contact with people (Holaday,

The contributions of Dr. Kanner and Dr. Asperger built the foundation for current understanding and classification of autism, or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as defined in the DSM-5, yet ASD had many different name changes and classifications. By the 1970s, ASD fell into a category under schizophrenia, being called “infantile autism” (Ousley & Cermak, 2014). After being called “pervasive developmental disorder” with a spectrum of five distinct age-defined categories in the 1990s, the condition was named and dubbed DSM-5’s “autism spectrum disorder” (Holaday, 2012; Ousley & Cermak,

In fact, environmental factors in a child’s prenatal or perinatal stage of development have also been linked to ASD, although none have been specifically identified (Corcoran & Walsh, 2016). Low birth weight is one perinatal event that can complicate a child’s development while maternal use of medications is a prenatal factor (Corcoran & Walsh, 2016). Some speculate that firstborns, who have a higher risk of autism, could be attributed to greater in utero ingestion of maternal toxins or perhaps due to firstborns being exposed to fewer infections and being more likely to develop autoimmune toxins that affect brain development (Corcoran & Walsh,