Adam Feinstein

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Adam Feinstein
The History of Autism
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• Possible pre-20th century cases
• First use of the term autism
• Other pre-Kanner, 20th-century references
• The psychoanalytical trend
• Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger
• The 1950s
• Bruno Bettelheim
• Bernard Rimland, the great debunker
• Lorna Wing and Britains National
• Autistic Society

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• The first prevalence studies
• The 1970s key research
• The autistic spectrum and the Triad of
  Impairments
• Developments in education Eric Schopler, Ivar
  Lovaas
• The 1980s an important decade
• Autism in the developing nations
• Recent developments and arguments
• The positive value of autism
• What the future may hold

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Since most professionals now accept that autism
is a neurological disorder, there is every reason
to assume that it has always existed.
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First use of the term autism
He used the term from the Greek autos - in
his 1911 paper, Dementia praecox oder Gruppe der
Schizophrenien, and it appeared in English for
the first time in a review of his paper in the
New York State Hospitals Bulletin in August 1912
EUGEN BLEULER
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Other 20th-century, pre-Kanner references to
what we would now recognise as autistic behaviour

1. Eugène Minkowski
2. Lightner Witmer
3. Eva Ssucharewa
4. Howard Potter
5. Charles James Cecil Earl

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The psychoanalytical approach to autism

• Melanie Klein
• Margaret Mahler

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LEO KANNER
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Differences between Kanners and Aspergers cases
In 1971, Van Krevelen, of the University of
Leidens School of Medicine in the Netherlands
wrote that the clinical pictures of Kanners and
Aspergers cases differ considerably. He said
that Kanner described psychotic processes,
characterised by a course. Aspergers autuistic
psychopathy represented traits, which were
static. Nowadays, it is the similarities, more
than the differences, between the two cases which
tend to be emphasised.
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HANS ASPERGER
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The 1950s
1952 - Publication of DSM-I 1956 -
Kanner-Eisenberg revision of criteria for
autism
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The 1960s

• Bruno Bettelheim the sinister influence
• Bernard Rimland the great debunker
• Lorna Wing and the birth of the National Autistic
  Society in the UK
• Gerhard Bosch
• Victor Lotters prevalence study (1966)
• Publication of DSM-II in 1968

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Blamed the parents for their childs autism. He
wrote The precipitating factor in infantile
autism is the parents wish that his child should
not exist. His 1967 book, The Empty Fortress,
received rave reviews from, among others, The New
York Times and became a bestseller
BRUNO BETTELHEIM
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His landmark 1964 book, Infantile Autism The
Syndrome and Its Implications for a Neural Theory
of Behaviour, debunked the belief that parents
behaviour made their children autistic. He
marshalled extensive evidence and arguments to
show that the disorder had a biological basis
BERNARD RIMLAND
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The 1970s

• Israel Kolvins 1971 paper
• Susan Folstein and Michael Rutters twin study
  (1977)
• 1978 - Michael Rutters four criteria for
  defining autism
• 1979 - Lorna Wing and Judith Goulds Triad of
  Impairments

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He carried out a ground-breaking 1977 twin study
with Susan Folstein and then, in 1978, he took
one of the greatest strides towards making autism
both a coherent and a conventional diagnosis.
Professor Sir MICHAEL RUTTER
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She was involved in setting up the National
Autistic Society in the UK and then introduced
the concept of the Triad of Impairments with
Judith Gould in 1979.
LORNA WING
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Developments in Education

• Eric Schopler and TEACCH
• Ivar Lovaas

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In 1971, Schopler - who had seen stark unfairness
wihile working with Bruno Bettelheim in Chicago -
founded TEACCH (Teaching and Education of
Autistic and other Communication-Handicapped
Children) in North Carolina. This educational
programme is now used all over the world.
ERIC SCHOPLER
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The 1980s

• Publication of DSM-III in 1980 a transforming
  document
• Publication of DSM-III-Revised in 1987
• Bauman and Kempers landmark 1985 brain study
• Theory of Mind

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The 1990s

• Advances in genetic research
• Diagnostic progress
• 1992 - publication of the World Health
  Organisations ICD-10
• 1994 - publication of the American Psychiatric
  Associations DSM-IV
• The MMR vaccine debate
• The lingering shadow of Bruno Bettelheim

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Autism in the developing nations

• China
• India
• Africa

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Recent developments and arguments

• Genetics
• Brain research
• Gene-environment interaction
• A different sense of shame
• A product of the late-20th-century
• Insights from within and without

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The positive value of autism
Autism seen by some as a difference, not a
disability Wendy Lawson calls it a diffability
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What the future may hold
Professor Simon Baron-Cohen told The Times It
has never been a better time to have autism. Why?
Because there is a remarkably good fit between
the autistic mind and the digital age. For this
new generation of children with autism, I
anticipate that many of them will find ways to
blossom, using their skills with digital
technology to find employment, to find friends
and in some cases to innovate.
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ADAM FEINSTEIN
Adam Feinstein is the editor of two
autism-related websites, AutismConnect
(www.autismconnect.org) and Awares
(www.awares.org), as well as a monthly
international autism newsletter, Looking Up
(www.lookingupautism.org). He has written on
autism for many publications, including the
Guardian, and has given talks on the disorder
around the world. He is currently writing a book
on the history of autism to be published by
Wiley-Blackwell, and sponsored by the Shirley
Foundation. He has a 15-year-old son, Johnny,
with autism. He is also the author of Pablo
Neruda A Passion for Life, the first
authoritative biography of the Chilean Nobel
Prize-winning poet, published in 2004 to coincide
with Neruda's centenary.