Understanding Autism
Class 1
Fall 2013
Brief History
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1911 Eugene Blueler
1943 Leo Kanner
1944 Hans Asperger
1952 DSM-I (diagnosed under the schizophrenic reaction, childhood type)
1965 National Society for Autistic Children (later named Autism Society of America)
1965 Ivar Lovaas and ABA
1967 The Empty Fortress
1968 DSM-II (diagnosed under the schizophrenic reaction, childhood type…the
word autistic referenced under this label)
1971 JADD started
1972 TEAACH founded
1979 Wing and Gould suggest autism is spectrum
1980 DSM-III infantile autism
1987 DSM-III-R autistic disorder
1988 Rain Man
1989 ADOS published
1994 DSM-IV Pervasive Developmental Disorder, encompasses 5 diagnoses
1994 NAAR founded
1995 CAN founded
1997 NIH CPEA network started, followed by STAART and ACE
2000 IMFAR starts
2005 Autism Speaks
2013 DSM-5 Autism Spectrum Disorders
Brief Overview: What we know
 Autism is a neurobiological disorder characterized by
impairments in social communication and restricted/repetitive
behaviors.
 Is diagnosed in boys 3-4 more times than girls.
 Autism is found in all social class levels and in all racial/ethnic
groups.
 Behaviorally based interventions are effective at improving
outcomes.
 Most interventions are associated with improvements for SOME
children. No interventions show improvement for ALL children.
 There are no genetic or biological tests to diagnose autism.
 Autism has a strong genetic component.
 What we know is limited by our cultural lens/perspective
Different Ways of Knowing
•
Experience and Observation
• Scientific method
• Personally experienced with the senses
•
Reason
• Making inferences from previously acquired knowledge
•
Faith
• Testimony
• Word of mouth
• By an authority
The Refrigerator Mother Theory
Sigmund Freud
publishes
The
Interpretation
of Dreams
1899
Leo Kanner
publishes first
report of
Susan Folstein
autism
publishes twin
study of autism
1943
1911
Eugene
Bleuler, coins
term autism
from greek
word autos
meaning self
1977
1953
Francis & Crick
discover double
helix
1967
Bruno
Bettelheim
publishes
The Empty
Fortress
Activity
Huh? How does this relate?
Huh? How does this relate?
 Autism is disorder of social cognition.
 Social cognition is the ability to detect, attend to, and
process social information in the environment, and to use
this information to guide behavior.
 The first stimuli (first sentence) has to be detected, attended
to, processed, then used to guide behavior, reproduce in
picture form. This is repeated back and forth.
 This is static, plenty of time, few dimensions, not happening
as dynamically, quickly, or as complicated as a social
interaction.