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Evolution of Understanding ASD
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Jean Marc Gaspard Itard
Autism is not a new disorder, it has been around for thousands of years. For example, in 1799, a boy named "Victor" was found in the woods, living with wolves. He was brought to Jean Marc Gaspard Itard. The boy was lacking human socialization, and showed signs of uncontrollable behavior, which was consistent with the presence of autism. Even though Itard could not socialize Victor as he had hoped, it does give evidence to the fact that autism has been around for centuries. -
Leo Kanner
Leo Kanner was a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University. He was the first to use the term autism in reference to a group of 11 children who were brought to his clinic, in which he noticed shared similarities in the way they lacked socialization with others and extreme behavioral tendencies.
"He was the first to apply the term autism." -
Hans Asperger
Hans Asperger, a scientist, worked with four young boys and noted that they had a "clever sounding language", they lacked social skills, causing them to be targeted by other peers, as well as gross motor problems and narrow interests. Autistic psychopathy is the term Asperger used to label the boys condition. (Frith, 2004) -
Theory (Etiology)
Because the exact cause of autism is still unknown, plausible theories over time have been studied and debunked.
Kanner (1946) was the first to describe parents of autistic children as interpersonally distant. He concluded that the children he observed were "kept neatly in refrigerators which did not defrost" (Kanner, 1973. P. 61) -
Theory (Etiology)
Because the exact cause of autism is still unknown, plausible theories over time have been studied and debunked. Bruno Bettelheim (1967) believed that autism was caused by "refrigerator" mothers, meaning- cold and detached. -
Prevalence Rates
Until the end of the twentieth century, prevalence rates for autism
(not ASD) were 5-15 out of every 10,000 (Wing & Gould, 1979). -
Lorna Wing
Loma Wing, an English psychiatrist, wrote a series of case loads in 1981 profiling the syndrome. Because of her work, the term Asperger syndrome began to be used. -
Prevalence Rates
Prevalence rates range from 7 to 13 cases per 10,000 (Bryson, 1997: Bryson. Clark. &Smith. 1998: Steffenberg & Gillberg. 1986: Sugiyama &Abe. 1989) -
Serotonian Research (Etiology)
Serotonin has been the most consistently implicated neurotransmitter in ASD and is of interest because of its role in language production (Chandana et al., 2005) and sensory responses. A number os researchers have verified that about one-third of individuals with ASD have elevated levels of serotonin (Anderson et al., 1987; Cook, 1990,1996; Hollander et al., 1998) -
Prevalence Rates
Autism occurs more than Down's syndrome, cystic fibrosis, and several childhood cancers ( Fombonne, 1998: Gillberg, 1996) -
Prevalence Rates
It has been suggested that,the prevalence of ASD has increased dramatically over the years because of the increase in knowledge about the subject and the ability to identify the syndromes (Lord et al., 2001)
