Historically, late in the first decade of the twentieth century, Eugen Bleuler used the term autism to describe some schizophrenic symptomatology. That term was derived from the Greek word “autos”that means “self” to reflect the status of a person who has impaired social reciprocity, hence lives isolated. The term and the diagnosis of ‘infantile autism’ were introduced into the world of science by an American psychiatrist, Leo Kanner. In an article of 1943, Kanner described a condition in 11 children with socialization that he called ‘early infantile autism (Kanner,1943), A year later the word ‘autism’ in its modern sense (e.g. developmental disorder) was also used by the Austrian physician Hans Asperger, he observed children with normal (and sometimes higher) intelligence, who had difficulties communicating failed to demonstrate empathy, did not understand body language and had poor language in terms of sounds or verbal statements. He gave a description of a syndrome which was later named after him, the syndrome of Asperger (Asperger, 1944). |
