2012).Īlthough attracting considerably less attention at the time, Hans Asperger’s report (Asperger 1944) of boys who had marked social difficulties, unusual circumscribed interests, and good verbal skills was also monumental.
Presumably, these feral children had either been abandoned or run away from their parents, the latter being a problem still noted by families of children with autism today (Anderson et al. Kanner’s report was, of course, groundbreaking, but it is also important to note that even earlier descriptions of children who likely had autism were made in the 1800s in a training school for the intellectually disabled (Donvan and Zucker 2016) and in the 1700s with some reports of feral children (Candland 1995). To Kanner, these movements appeared to be ways for the child to maintain sameness in his/her world. The latter term also included some of the unusual stereotyped movements he noted such as body rocking and hand flapping. He emphasized two essential features of the condition: (1) autism-or severe problems in social interaction and connectedness from the beginning of life, and (2) resistance to change/insistence on sameness. Kanner ( 1943) described 11 children, 8 boys and 3 girls, who presented with “inborn autistic disturbances of affective contact”. This issue of changes in terminology also arises with respect to Asperger’s disorder and the broader autism phenotype in general, we will try to separate these terms to make it clear that they are not necessarily synonymous.Īny discussion of the development of autism as a diagnostic concept inevitably starts with the work of Leo Kanner and his landmark observation in 1943 (Kanner 1943). When we refer to the concept in general, we will use the term autism, and when we refer to particular, earlier diagnostic constructs, we will use more specific terms like autism spectrum disorder, infantile autism, and autistic disorder. Not surprisingly, the name of the condition first described by Kanner has changed across the past few decades. In undertaking this review, we are aware that terms have shifted over time. Throughout this review, we will discuss the evolution of autism as a diagnostic concept as well as highlight important areas of work on the condition including the impact of gender, culture, social class, race/ethnicity, age, and cognitive ability that continue to be the focus of research. That said, the definition of autism has in fact alternated over time between broader and narrower views of the condition. As a result of this work, autism was included for the first time in DSM-III (APA 1980) and maintained in every subsequent edition of the manual. Official recognition of this condition took almost 40 years several lines of evidence became available in the 1970s that demonstrated the validity of the diagnostic concept, clarified early misperceptions about autism, and illustrated the need for clearer approaches to its diagnosis.
It has now been nearly 80 years since Leo Kanner’s ( 1943) classic description of infantile autism.