History of Autism, ASD, and AD

History of Autism, ASD, and AD

Leo Kanner, a doctor at Johns Hopkins Hospital and the first self-described child-psychiatrist, first described what we now know to be autism in his 1943 paper titled, "Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact." He described a disorder similar to, but distinct from childhood schizophrenia. Autism, taken from symptoms of schizophrenia, described withdrawn symptoms or social interaction problems, and was included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 3rd Ed. (DSM-III) under the name Infantile Autism in 1980. This was later changed to autism in the revised DSM-III in 1987. The authors indicated that some camps still considered autism a schizophrenic disorder, and that infantile autism was the earliest form of schizophrenia (Sanders, 2009).

In 1944, Austrian pediatrician and medical professor, Hans Asperger described a very similar disorder in his research, Autistic Psychopathy in Childhood. He described the same deficits of social interaction and stereotyped behavior. But because it was not translated into English, it was not widely published or introduced to the larger medical community until 1981. But unlike Kanner’s autism, Asperger described extraordinary abilities in mathematics and relative strengths in some communicative skills. Whereas Kanner described autism as having qualitative impairments in communication, Asperger told of children speaking like “little adults, although in a rigid, stereotyped fashion.” Lorna Wing, English psychiatrist and physician, who introduced Asperger’s paper to North America, noted that there was no evidence that any qualitative differences existed between autism and Asperger’s disorder, but her assertion was largely ignored (Sanders, 2009).

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..., J. S., Bilder, D., Farley, M., Coon, H., Pinborough-Zimmerman, J., Jenson, W., & ... McMahon, W. M. (2013). Autism spectrum disorder reclassified: A second look at the 1980s Utah/UCLA Autism epidemiologic study. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 43(1), 200-210.

Sanders, J. (2009). Qualitative or quantitative differences between Asperger's disorder and Autism? Historical considerations. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 39(11), 1560-1567.

United States Census Bureau. (2010). Profile America Facts for Features. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/cb10-ff14.html

Woodbury-Smith, M., Klin, A., & Volkmar, F. (2005). Asperger's syndrome: A comparison of clinical diagnoses and those made according to the ICD-10 and DSM-IV. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 35(2), 235-240.