150: The Development of Autism

“Autism” first got its name in the early 1900s, when a doctor believed that certain children were so obsessed with themselves (the Greek word “auto” meaning “self”) that they chose to block out everything and everyone outside of their own mind. Over the next hundred-plus years, doctors and researchers, as well as celebrities, would throw […]

“Autism” first got its name in the early 1900s, when a doctor believed that certain children were so obsessed with themselves (the Greek word “auto” meaning “self”) that they chose to block out everything and everyone outside of their own mind. Over the next hundred-plus years, doctors and researchers, as well as celebrities, would throw in their hypotheses and two cents as autism became more understood. Several people, both medical and not, caused irreparable harm to the autistic community, harm that endures to this day. Organizations have been set up to essentially exterminate autism- and therefore, autistic people. Through social media, actual autistic people are finally getting their voices heard.

SOURCES:

The controversy over autism’s most common therapy

Historical Perspective

The evolution of ‘autism’ as a diagnosis, explained

https://www.news-medical.net/health/Autism-History.aspx

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3757918/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Triplett

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_autism_fraud

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05112-1