Autism : What Causes Autism? Essay

Autism has become one of the top disabilities in California’s developmental system. Today, the rise of autism is increasing by 10 - 17 percent each year. (Madeleine 3) "The disease was first identified by child psychologist Leo Kanner in 1943 at Johns Hopkins University" (Little 2). Autism is a disorder that is usually detected within the first three years. According to the Autism Society of America, 1 in 166 individuals are diagnosed with autism, making it more common than the pediatric cancer, diabetes, and AIDS combined. Boys are four times more likely to have it than girls. People with autism have a hard time communicating verbally and physically. They have special ways of gathering and reacting to information presented to them.

Some of the characteristics of those who have autism consist of repetitive thinking and compulsive attention in things like symbols, languages and numbers. The cause of autism is not yet known as of now, however, many people consider it a genetic disorder which takes place at birth. Christopher Boone has one specific form of autism known as Asperger’s syndrome, his disorder is reflected through his fascination with mathematics, detail, astronomy and colours; his thoughts on routine and violent hatred to interaction, even though it is not specified in the book. In 1943 Leo Kanner a psychiatrist published a paper surrounded around the research of 11 young patients that fit into a fine variety of diagnostic principles that he measured out to be autistic. During Kanner’s career he has seen fewer than 150 cases that go with the description he came up with of the syndrome, he theorised that autism was very unsupported and rare. Autism turned out to be a foundation of embarrassment and several of those who were diagnosed were certified; in the 1970s everything started to change (Kennedy Krieger Institute and the Simons Foundation, n.d.). Hans Asperger and Leo Kanner both used the word autism, in the 1940s when they were doing

In the mid 1900s, psychiatrist Leo Kanner and a pediatrician Hans Asperger used the same word “autism” for a condition where children had deficits in socializing and forming contact. Stemming off the greek word “autos” meaning self, Kanner stated that autistic children had good cognitive potential yet they had islets of ability meaning their intelligence was focused in silos. There was an assumption that autistics were incapable of intelligence and were mentally disabled. Later, Laurent Mottron discredited the theories that autism is caused parents or “refrigerator mothers” and shed light on the fact that neurotypicals lack the abilities of autistic savants. The view of individuals with autism is skewed and as Amanda Baggs shows in her vivid video describing her behaviour, it

Eugen Blueler, a psychiatrist, was the first to introduce the name "Autism" but he diagnosed this disease to a schizophrenic adult. Leo Kanner distinguished the two later in order to clarify the understanding of the disability. (Forty-six)

To understand the standoff between autism and Asperger syndrome, it is important to understand the common basis of the two disorders as provided by Frith (1991). Autism, which is usually termed as the “parent” disorder that may give rise to Asperger syndrome, is a brain abnormality resulting from brain disease, brain insult, or faults arising from genetic factors. Additionally, it is developmental, meaning that it manifests itself differently depending on factors such as ability or age. Since the disorder affects the brain, it is termed as a

Autism has undergone significant definition changes in the past. The term was first used in 1912 by the Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler from the Greek word for self—autos—in his description of patients with “schizophrenic thinking divorced from both logic and reality” (Rorvik 249). However, an established set of guidelines for diagnosis would not be established until 1943, when Leo Kanner, a German émigré to the United States, wrote “Autistic Disturbances of Affective Content”, a landmark essay in which he “described eleven children who, from infancy, had seemed to cut off from their parents…[and] existed in their own, often impenetrable world” (Pollak 250). The common features that he noticed in those eleven children were

Research into Autism has grown enormously over the past 20 years due to growing awareness and the number of children and adults affected. In 1943, Leo Kanner first described the classic autistic syndrome. Since then, our knowledge and understanding in this area has broadened. In consequence, estimates of prevalence have increased considerably.

Leo Kanner is the first person to formally identified autism. In 1943, Kanner labeled autism as “autistic disturbance of affective contact”. Initially, there was a lot of confusion concerning Kanner’s description of autism because it was closely related to the characterization of other mental disorders

In 1943, Leo Kanner observed a small group of children with a condition he called Infantile Autism, launching the scientific study of autism. There were few studies about autism through the 1960s, but “behavioral research began demonstrating that children with autism were capable of learning, if taught systematically and intensively using operant learning methods” (Thompson, 2013). Through the 1970s and

Leo Kanner was a renowned child psychiatrist and helped create the first children’s psychiatric unit at Johns Hopkins. I do not believe he knew what he was creating when he coined the term “refrigerator mother.” As the “Father of Child Psychiatry”, he attempted to right his wrongs by writing In Defense of Mothers. Kanner claimed that autism was a disorder that only affected individuals during infancy, which left adolescents and adults with the same symptoms to be overlooked. Kanner was eventually proven wrong, because autism was proven to affect individuals throughout their lives (Baron-Cohen.)

Although Kanner in 1943 in a report titled ‘Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact’, borrowed the term ‘autism’ from Bleuler he did not consider what he referred to as ‘infantile autism’ an early form of schizophrenia. The medical signs were distinguishable and, unlike schizophrenia, Kanner’s patients appeared to display symptoms from birth. In his report Kanner recorded conditions that were consistent in 11 young patients. The patients refused contact with parents or others and preferred to be alone, the displayed language disorders i.e. selective mutism and failure to from sentences correctly. He observed their excellent memory skills which he referred to as ‘mechanical memory’ and how they displayed abnormal behaviours along with

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

Bettelheim furthered the idea that parent’s treating their child in a cold manner was the cause for autism in children. The idea was that these types of mothers did not show love to their children, and that this was the reason for the child’s autism (Sole-Smith, 2015). Following this idea, the upbringing of the child became the center of focus. Interestingly, Bettelheim neglected to take into account parents that had other children that did not have autism (Laidler, 2004)L. In addition, the autistic child’s lack of interest in social situations may have been the reason for the cold relationship between parent and child (Laidler, 2004).

Refrigerator Mother Theory. Initially, Leo Kanner (1943), a child psychiatrist at the Johns Hopkins University, introduced the term “early infantile autism” in 1943. He considered that the refrigerator mother triggered early infantile autism. In other words, he believed that the autism was developed after the birth, and lack of parental warmth triggered children to become isolated from the society. Consequently, those children who did not receive enough care exhibited autistic like feature, meaning “alone or self” in Greek. Furthermore, this idea was strongly supported by Bruno Bettelheim, Austrian-born American child psychiatrist, for two decades. He similarly claims that the autism was caused from mother withheld appropriate affection toward their children and failed to make a good connection with them during infancy (Bettelheim, 2010). Moreover, he states that weak or absent father would likely cause autism, since children would not receive enough paternal love. In both cases, psychiatrists in mid-twentieth century believed that the autism was developed from children not receiving enough love, warmth and care from their parents. Moreover, they believed that good parenting could alleviate children from becoming ASD.

Parents worry that certain vaccines cause certain health problems, from the alleged effects, comes the belief that vaccines might cause autism. The term autism was coined by Hans Asperger in 1938 (Largent). In 1943, Leo Kanner reported eleven children with notable similarities in their behaviors (Largent). Throughout the twentieth century reported cases of autism were rare. Autism affects more children than childhood cancer, diabetes and AIDS combined. In addition the frequency of the disease is rising. In just the last decade, the number of children diagnosed with autism has doubled. Parents concern for the hidden risks to their children from mercury