Reflection:

Cavendish's passionate interest and unique mind led to centuries-before-his-time findings in science. He demonstrates the power of Asperger's autistic intelligence and how neurodiversity makes our world a better place.

Reflection:

Wilson's biography clearly concludes that Cavendish's autistic traits, one of which he describes as "single-minded intensity" in pursuing natural philosophy, is what made him so successful.

"His singularities were inextricable from his genius."

Reflection:

Sacks' proposal also demonstrated to the world (as Sacks was well-respected in his field) that autistic traits include strengths and unique gifts that enrich our world.

"Children with autism were particularly vulnerable to institutional prejudice because most psychologists believed they were incapable even of rote learning."

Reflection:

The Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975) was significant because it paved the way for what is now the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (1990), which gave autistic children access to a free and appropriate public education (FAPE).

"These books told me the only news I wanted to hear...that my son could be made normal again."

Reflection:

Parents were given false hope about their children- and these books reinforced beliefs that autism was a bad thing that had broken or stolen "normal" children.

!!!!!

Reflection:

This was yet another lauded “treatment” for autism that put a lot of pressure on families and autistic people. It also perpetuated beliefs that autism could be “cured” and that it was caused by bad parents.

"A study in Japan found that rates of autism continued to rise steeply even after the combination of MMR was replaced by single vaccines.”

Reflection:

This was significant to the history of autism because it demonstrated that the rise of autism was not linked to the MMR vaccine, which was (and still) a popular myth about the cause of autism/the "endemic" of autism.

"Lazar aimed to turn his clinic into a microcosm of a more humane society in which the children could learn to interact in a context of mutual respect and appreciation."

Reflection:

Lazar based his clinical methodology on the concept called heilpadagogik, which meant "therapeutic education." He wanted to provide the children in his special-education unit with child-centered care and activities so that they would thrive and find "comrades" like themselves. This view and clinical methodology was very influential on Asperger's work with autistic children at the Heilpadagogik Station.

"Great value is placed on intuition gained...while working, or better while living, with the children."

Reflection:

Michaels' observations of the H. Clinic practices provided documentation of the characteristics of neurodiversity-affirming intervention. This included being respectful of autistic clients and making the intervention conform to the client, rather. than making the autistic client conform to the clinician's way of thinking or doing things.

"If they found a teacher who...cultivated their natural talents, they might thrive, though they would always remain eccentric."

Reflection:

Sukhareva's proposal of "schizoid personality disorder" was significant because, although autism is not a personality disorder, she was apt in pointing out that it comes with "natural talents," and that having adequate supports would maximize those natural strengths. This is related to the concept of neurodiversity. Her belief that these talents can be cultivated was also significant for intervention practices, because she also supported the notion that intervention should conform to the individual, rather than conforming the autistic person to the intervention. Further, it was also significant that Sukhareva did not advocate for treatment as a cure or removal of autism (though she called it something different), since she said they would "always remain eccentric."

Autism is a form of "extreme intelligence" in males.

Reflection:

This was important because Asperger demonstrated a very different view of autism as a spectrum and as a strength, so different from Kanner's pathologizing and narrow view of autism. His paper would eventually be referenced by Sullivan to propose Asperger's syndrome as a separate diagnosis and Lorna Wing to propose a spectrum of autism.

"The [ERO] churned out hundreds of papers on such topics as 'fit and unfit matings' and the care and training of the 'mentally and physically defective classes.'

Reflection:

The ERO was the major organization backing the eugenics movement in America, accompanying the 1909 statute passing in California that allowed public-health officials to castrate "convicts and residents of the California Home for the Care and Training of Feebleminded Children." Eugenic ideas and legislature were obviously harmful to autistic people in the US, but they also contributed to the popularization of eugenic ideas in Germany as well. This included the work of Alfred Hoche and Karl Binding, which Hitler referenced to support his acts against autistic and disabled people in WWII.

He proposed his paradigm for cognitive disabilities: “The good and bad in a person, their potential for success or failure...are mutually conditional, arising from the same source.” He also said that ‘strengths and capacities’ of autistic children “might appear in them as they came of age that were not immediately apparent.” 

Reflection:

In this historic presentation, Asperger advocated for autistic and disabled children by presenting a paradigm for cognitive disability that went against the eugenic ideas prevalent at the time, including advocating for teaching disabled children to “cope” with their difficulties rather than attempting to eradicate these difficulties. He used his case studies of 4 autistic boys to demonstrate his point, as he argued that their successes were based on strengths and skills that they had always had, even as young children, and which were brought to light because they were essentially taught to “cope” with these differences. This talk was largely ineffective for swaying his Nazi superiors at the University of Vienna, and his use of case studies of 4 autistic boys with similar (lower) levels of support needs drew attention away from his discovery that autism is a spectrum. 

“He made [autism] a diagnostic entity apart from the undifferentiated mass of ‘pre-psychotic children.’” 

Reflection: 

Kanner presented a case study of 11 autistic children with characteristics such as “extreme autistic aloneness,” and “an anxiously obsessive desire for the maintenance of sameness.” He also presented these children with narrow presentations (rather than a spectrum), asserted that autism (though not called that at this point) was a rare phenomenon, and he focused heavily on young children. Additionally, he suggested that parenting styles caused autism, which would become a harmful legacy in the history of autism. These depictions of autism were very influential in the field of psychiatry from this point onward.  

Despert “[identified] a cluster of behaviors and traits that could have been lifted directly from Asperger’s files...She concluded, ‘Schizophrenia in children is probably not so rare as it has long been thought.’” 

Reflection: 

Despert’s notoriety in the field was important because she advocated for the diagnosis of “childhood schizophrenia,” which was a diagnosis often attributed to autistic children. She also strongly suggested that childhood schizophrenia was caused by “schizophrenogenic” mothers, which would become a harmful legacy in the history of autism. 

• These children “exhibited a number of behaviors that are now considered classic signs of autism” 

• “By 1954, Bender saw 850 young patients with that diagnosis at Bellevue alone.” 

• “From 1946 to 1961, one in seven children admitted to the Langley Porter Neuropschiatric Institute in San Francisco were diagnosed as “psychotic.”” 

Reflection:

The rise in prevalence of childhood schizophrenia in the mid 1900s mirrored the apparent “epidemic” of autism in the 1990s and 2000s. Though childhood schizophrenia was an extremely heterogeneous diagnosis, it is apparent that many of these children were autistic, including the 100 patients diagnosed with childhood schizophrenia described by Lauretta Bender in 1946. They presented with “a number of behaviors that are now considered classic signs of autism.” This is relevant to the history of autism to demonstrate that the perceived epidemic in recent years is not truly a new phenomenon or epidemic caused by modern ailments. 

This had a confounding effect on research, because virtually any sample of “psychotic” children was bound to include kids with a wide variety of heterogenous conditions.” 

Reflection: 

Kanner included early infantile autism as an early manifestation of childhood schizophrenia, which was very influential on current “retrospective assessments of the prevalence of autism” to use as a standard of comparison for the supposed “epidemic” in the 1990s and 2000s. 

“His statements...[led to] the widespread adoption of an approach to therapeutic intervention for autism that included years of psychoanalysis for the parents and removal of the children to an institution.” 

Reflection 

Kanner and Eisenberg's paper supported the notion that early infantile autism (then understood as an early stage of childhood schizophrenia) was caused by parenting styles (namely, “refrigerator parents”) that forced children to be “self-sufficient.” This led to widespread institutionalization of autistic children and shame and blame placed on parents and families for decades thereafter. 

“The primary damage that Bettelheim did to a generation of autistic children and their families was spreading Kanner’s theories of toxic parenting.” 

Reflection: 

Bettelheim used his charisma and work at the Orthogenic School (including a 5-year study on autism funded by the Ford Foundation) to build himself into a recognized figure in pop culture. Consequently, he wrote a book about autism that became a bestseller and made Kanner’s theory of the “refrigerator mother” well-known. This had negative ramifications on autism research and intervention for decades, and, most importantly, on autistic children and their families. 

“The magazine...[had] membership in a clued-in community part of the “product” that Gernsback was selling.” 

Reflection: 

Gernsback launched his magazine for ham radio operators and published a registry for readers to get connected. This created a community that valued and celebrated shared passions for innovations in science and technology, which created the basis for historical communities that often included a lot of autistic people. 

“Fandom offered what every homesick space child yearned for: membership in an elite society of loners united by their belief in the future.” 

Reflection: 

Gernsback launched his publication, Amazing Stories, which sold affordable wood “pulp” books that attracted a large fan base, whom he connected to one another by printing a registry. Amazing Stories established the genre of science fiction with deeply connected fandom communities that were well-suited to autistic people. 

“Slan had special resonance...because they saw a reflection of their own predicament in this tale of superintelligent, supersentive, and profoundly misunderstood mutants struggling to survive in a world not built for them.” 

Reflection: 

The three-part series, Slan, created a major science fiction fandom community for many autistic people, much like how Gernsberg’s magazines created community for science fiction fans and “hams.” 

Rimland “firmly established autism as an inborn condition based in genetics and neurology rather than the complexities of the developing psyche.” 

Reflection: 

This was important because it led to Rimland launching the National Society for Autistic Children (NSAC). The NSAC was significant in the history of autism because it created a community that supported autistic children and their families rather than instilling shame and isolation. The NSAC also advocated for the educational rights of autistic children.  However, his book also eventually led to his research and clinical practice attempting to find a cure for autism via supplements and pharmacology, which was a damaging pursuit for autistic children and their families for a long time. 

“’I had the chance to build language and other social and intellectual behaviors where non had existed, a good test of how much help a learning-based approach could offer.” 

Reflection: 

Through his research at UCLA with autistic children, Lovaas pioneered what is now known as applied behavioral analysis (ABA) theory, which is based on Skinner’s theories of behavioral learning, including operant conditioning. ABA therapy had a dark genesis, including the use of painful shocks to remove and replace autistic behaviors with non-autistic behaviors (which violated research guidelines forbidding punishment on human participants). ABA remains a contentious topic in autistic communities, but its history is decidedly sad and speaks to just how pathologized and “othered” autism has historically been treated. 

“The fact that some children who displayed all the classic signs of early infantile autism...had managed to grow up to become happy and well-adjusted autistic adults without the benefit of elaborate elimination diets and gray-market drugs...had been forgotten.” 

Reflection: 

Rimland and Edelson’s book led to the launching of Defeat Autism Now! This included a network of “clinicians and alt-med practitioners” that sought to cure autism through pharmacological and diet-based interventions. This continued a very cure-focused approach in the field of autism intervention, rather than an approach focused on accommodations and services. 

“The logo adopted by the society...would eventually become the universal symbol of autism parents’ organizations worldwide.” 

Reflection: 

The appearnce of the Allisons on Women’s Hour prompted the formation of the Autistc Children’s Aid Society of North London (now known as the National Autistic Society (NAS)). It was one of the first parent-led groups and inspired a framework of similar parents’ organizations around the globe, which served to reduce some of the isolation experienced by many autistic children and their families. 

The Somerset House focused on providing autistic adults with education and training so that they can maintain and extend educational abilities...and acquire occupational skills.’” 

Reflections: 

The Somerset House was important because it was created as a response to autistic teenagers. They had indeed made progress in their education under Sybil Elgar’s instruction, but they were not “cured.” Elgar and the NAS recognized that attention needed to be put into supporting autistic teenagers for their adult lives, not just investing in autistic children for the possibility of recovery. 

“He calculated a prevalence estimate of 4.5 cases of autism in 10,000...a very small number indeed.” 

Reflection: 

The prevalence numbers recorded at this time, which were in alignment with Kanner’s assertions that autism was a rare condition, were obtained with questionable methodology, but it “became the oft-quoted baseline against which all future autism prevalence autism estimates would be compared in the coming decades.” This is an example of issues fueling the Autism Wars in the 2000s, because there was general talk about an “autism epidemic” based on misleading data. 

“Rather than using a top-down method as Lotter had done...she decided to employ a bottom-up approach, searching for aspects of autistic behavior among children in Camberwell who were already identified as cognitively disabled.” 

Reflection: 

Wing and Gould’s methodology demonstrated that Kanner’s narrow criteria did support a view of autism as a rare condition, but by examining children demonstrating a wider range of autistic behaviors, they found that autism may in fact include a spectrum of presentations: the “autistic continuum.” This study launched Wing’s advocacy to change the current diagnostic criteria for autism so that more autistic children and families would have access to more resources and services they would not get without an autism diagnosis. This included introducing Asperger’s syndrome as a new diagnosis in 1981 and eventually the term autism spectrum.  

“’Not only do people like Bill need society, society needs people like Bill.’” 

Reflection: 

Barry Morrow wrote the movie Bill based on his friend Bill Sackter’s “journey to independence,” from living the first few decades of his life in an institution and being largely neglected by society to eventually becoming the proprietor of a cafe and being named the Handicapped Iowan of the Year in 1978. The movie demonstrated that though Bill had been “written off as incapable of learning” at a young age, he became an influential and respected member of his community. Bill’s story, and it being publicized in a movie that won an Emmy, a Peabody, and two Golden Globes, is an example of how neurodiversity betters our world. 

“Spitzer...reframed the DSM in a way that reinvented psychiatry as the front end of the pharmaceutical industry rather than the arcane art of soul healing.” 

Reflection: 

Spitzer’s work on the DSM-III made the DSM-III useful as a reliable, clinical tool to make differential diagnoses, which soon went into widespread use and revolutionized the field of psychiatry. It also led to more reliable and consistent diagnoses of autism after further revisions as “autistic disorder.” 

“The apparent increase in autism and related conditions among U.K. schoolchildren receiving grants was almost certainly the ‘result of better recognition.’” 

Reflection: 

This increase in children receiving services, whether it was for a diagnosis of autistic disorder, or one of the “sub-autism” diagnoses (such as PDD-NOS or Asperger’s syndrome) meant that Lorna Wing’s research and advocacy, which fueled the revisions to the DSM, were working to provide more children access to services. 

“Based on the criteria that would appear in the upcoming DSM-IV...the ADOS and...the Autism Diagnostic Interview were instantly embraced as the long-awaited gold standard of autism assessment.” 

Reflection: 

The introduction of the ADOS and the Autism Diagnostic Interview marked a distinct difference in autism diagnostic practices, because parents were welcome collaborators in the process, the criterion was measurable, and the tools were reliable. Notably, however, there was a major error in the DSM-IV, including over-identification of children with PDD, which may have contributed to the “autism epidemic” in the 2000s. 

“The link to the Foster Grant plant seemed undeniable.” 

Reflection: 

Lori Altobellis investigation into the supposed hotspot of autism and PDD diagnoses in autism and links to pollution from an old Foster Grant factory became a sensationalized story on 20/20 and ABC. There were not as many true cases of PDD or autism than initially thought in Leominster, but public concern had already been raised. This mirrored similar public outcries for modern “causes” of autism diagnoses, such as the MMR vaccine. 

Wakefield’s paper demonstrated “supreme confidence” turning “confluence of disparate phenomena into a theory of autism causation.” 

Reflection: 

Wakefield’s claims regarding the causation between the MMR vaccine and the “autism epidemic” caused widespread mistrust in the MMR vaccine, though his findings were later debunked as “an elaborate fraud.” His paper and the general concern during the “Autism Wars” continued to funnel resources around the world into discovering and managing causation for autism, rather than on focusing on supports for autistic people and their families. 

“Grandin cast more light on the day-to-day reality of autism than decades of clinical observation and speculation had managed to produce.” 

Reflections: 

Grandin was the first public speaker advocating for autism as an autistic person. She notably utilized “humanizing language of disability” to talk about autism and described the many “practical advantages” her autism provided her in her career; Grandin went even further with this, saying that autistic qualities have “advanced culture, science, and technological innovation for millennia.” 

-“They had come to feel that their autism...must be seen as a whole mode of being, a deeply different mode or identity, one that needs to be conscious...of itself.” 

-“At home...they didn’t feel disabled; they just felt different from their neighbors.” 

Reflection: 

Oliver Sacks described a case study of Mr. And Mrs. B., who adapted their home to be an example of autistic space, where they could celebrate their way of doing things as a difference, rather than feeling “disabled” by their environment. This case study is a simple demonstration of neurodiversity and how differences can be celebrated when they are honored and accommodated appropriately. 

“Its founders decided that ANI would stnd up for the civial rights and self-determination of people all across the spectrum.” 

Reflection: 

During her trip to America, Williams met with Sinclair and Lissner. In her book Somebody Somewhere, Williams described that being with other autistic people made it feel like they were “a lost tribe. ‘Normal’ is to be in the company of one like one’s self.’” These insights and her experience are an example of the power of autistic space and that inspired Donna, Sinclair, and Lessner to launch the first autistic-run advocacy organization in history: Autism Network International (ANI). The ANI’s development created a community for Autistic people. 

“These color-coded ‘interaction signal badges’ turned out to be so useful that they have since been widely adopted at autistic-run events all around the world.” 

Reflection: 

The practices developed by the ANI-L in 1995, including quiet rooms and color-coded interaction cards that continue to be utilized in autistic-run events throughout the world to create autistic space, including Autreat (the first for Autistic people by Autistic people events). 

“Autistics were challenging a conversation about autism in mainstream media without the help of a parent-run organization that claimed to speak for them.” 

Reflection: 

This was an important event because it was one of the first instances in which an autistic-run organization “challenged a conversation about autism in mainstream media” without a parent-run organization mediating or leading the conversation. This marked a distinct movement in neurodiversity advocacy, because autistic people were beginning to take charge of the autism conversation. This led to ASAN becoming an important organization involved in major legislation decisions, such as the 2014 minimum wage increase that would include disabled workers, and in revising the DSM-V's diagnostic criteria to be more inclusive of the full spectrum of autistic people, while eliminating the “sub-autism” diagnoses, including Asperger’s syndrome. 

“Society should regard [differences] as valuable part of humanity’s genetic legacy.” 

Reflection: 

The neurodiversity movement, which began in 1990s and gained momentum through to the present, was and is very important for autistic people because it utilizes a social theory of disability, in which the environments that people are in are what are disabling. The neurodiversity movement also advocates for resources and supports for autistic people to “live happier, healthier, more productive and more secure lives,” rather than focusing resources on finding causations and cure for autism. 

“At these events, the use of strobe lights and pyrotechnics onstage was limited, quiet areas were set aside...and social stories were made available to parents beforehand that their children could know what to expect.” 

Reflection: 

By trialing autism-friendly viewings of hit Broadway shows, the Theatre Development Fund kick-started autism-friendly viewings in the major movie theater chain, AMC, so that more autistic children and their families could enjoy principles of autistic space. This event also demonstrated the benefits and successes of creating autistic space. 

-“Neurodiversity activists have also pushed for more autistic representation in policy making, using the slogan, ‘Nothing about us, without us.’”

-“[Autistic researchers] contribute to science because of their autism, not in spite of it.” 

Reflection: 

Organizations such as the Academic Autistic Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education (AASPIRE) have advocated for autistic goals and perspectives to be included in current research on autism, even as the unique gifts of many autistic people, which have historically made autistic people particularly effective scientists, are being celebrated more.