DOCSLIB.ORG

On the Subject of Autism: Lacan, First-Person Writing, and Research Adam Neil Poulin University of Vermont

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
On the Subject of Autism: Lacan, First-Person Writing, and Research Adam Neil Poulin University of Vermont University of Vermont ScholarWorks @ UVM Graduate College Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses 2019 On the Subject of Autism: Lacan, First-Person Writing, and Research Adam Neil Poulin University of Vermont Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/graddis Part of the Other Medicine and Health Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Poulin, Adam Neil, "On the Subject of Autism: Lacan, First-Person Writing, and Research" (2019). Graduate College Dissertations and Theses. 997. https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/graddis/997 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks @ UVM. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate College Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ UVM. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ON THE SUBJECT OF AUTISM: LACAN, FIRST-PERSON WRITING, AND RESEARCH A Thesis Presented by Adam Poulin to The Faculty of the Graduate College of The University of Vermont In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Education Specializing in Interdisciplinary Studies January, 2019 Defense Date: November 5, 2018 Thesis Examination Committee: Todd McGowan, Ph.D., Advisor Judith Aiken, Ph.D., Chairperson Hyon-Joo Yoo, Ph.D. Lance Smith, Ph.D. Cynthia J. Forehand, Ph.D., Dean of the Graduate College ABSTRACT In his essay, Don’t Mourn for Us, Jim Sinclair describes autism as a “way of being.” He maintains there is “no normal child hidden behind the autism” and that “it colors every experience, every sensation, perception, thought, emotion, and encounter, every aspect of existence.” In an attempt to appreciate the depth of Sinclair’s statements, this thesis approaches autism as a “way of being” through the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan. By applying Lacan’s conceptual framework to first-person writing and scientific research, I lay an interdisciplinary foundation for the case I make. Although this project requires significant conceptual scaffolding across different epistemological systems, I consider how Lacanian theory possesses a unique capacity to conceive of autism as a way of being and to open new ways of approaching the source material. Implicitly, Sinclair asks that we consider the question of what it means “to be” – autistic, neurotypical, or otherwise. I approach this from the premise that an individual exists as a thinking being, or a “subject.” Because psychoanalysis is concerned with the constitutive role of the unconscious in structuring consciousness, this thesis invests substantial space in consideration of how the Lacanian subject is oriented around a fundamental lack. To this end, I return frequently to Lacan’s concept of objet a, understood as a representative of the subject’s lack in the perceptual realm that is itself lacking. Further, Lacan’s unique interpretation of Freud consists in placing language as the ultimate mediating structure of subjectivity; it both generates lack and establishes a system for mitigating it. One’s way of being is always a way of being in language.1 Given the predominant roles of language and social communication impairments in the DSM-V diagnostic criteria for autism, a main goal of this project is to consider how an autistic way of being entails a unique structuration of lack.2 Autism and psychoanalysis share a history that extends back to the origins of the diagnosis. I explore this history with a focus on how different psychoanalytic theories conceptualize the autistic subject and to what extent they honor or undermine Sinclair’s position. Contemporary Lacanian thinkers of autism do both. Unique to Lacan’s structural approach, the concept of the Other is inclusive of a radical alterity, yet also the system of language, the body, and certain aspects of the maternal and paternal functions. The subject is unthinkable apart from the Other. I suggest an autistic way of being is discernible in the autistic subject’s relation to each aspect of the Other. I find support for this claim in recent sensorimotor research. Referred to loosely as the movement perspective, this research suggests that differences in how autistic individuals move and perceive others is a “unifying characteristic” of autism.3 Importantly, the movement perspective is proactively inclusive of first-person knowledge. Read through Lacan’s conceptual framework, movement differences address the underlying mechanism of the autistic subject’s relation to the Other, and thus its way of being. Most fundamentally, this thesis is a work of theory that attempts to articulate something universal about being a subject, without simultaneously eliding what is unique about being an autistic subject ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not exist without the generous support of more individuals than I will name here. With that in mind, I would like to express my gratitude to Robert Nash and the Interdisciplinary Studies Program for maintaining an academic space that promotes student-directed learning; to Todd McGowan for his perhaps unwitting role in sustaining my desire to write; to my defense committee members for being open to this rather unruly project; to my friends, Monroe Street and Frank Smecker, who lent their valuable time and thoughtful commentary to early drafts; to Liliane Savard for her enthusiastic support and thought-provoking questions; to Stan Baker for keeping me grounded; and to Richard Boothby for helping me get unstuck more than once. I am most profoundly indebted to my family for their unwavering patience and providing me with the loving impetus to finish. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ ii Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................................................1 Meet and Greet ...............................................................................................................5 Psychoanalysis and Being ..............................................................................................8 Lacan’s Subject ............................................................................................................12 Why a Metapsychology ...............................................................................................21 Metapsychology from Freud to Lacan with Richard Boothby ..............................35 Being: The Final Approach ..........................................................................................46 Interlude – Psychoanalysis and Autism...................................................................... .......55 Chapter 2: Introduction .....................................................................................................84 Review .........................................................................................................................88 Das Ding and Autism Research ...................................................................................92 Eye Tracking and the Limit of the Imaginary .............................................................94 Movement Differences and the Thing about Autism .................................................100 The Object of the Autistic Other ...............................................................................105 The Shape of the Other and the Shape of the Object ................................................109 Review, Reset, and Discussion ..................................................................................125 The Object of Autistic Sense-Making .......................................................................129 Tito’s Autistic Objects and the Space of the Question ..............................................133 Conclusion: So what? And What Now? ..........................................................................149 Further Study .............................................................................................................154 Works Cited .....................................................................................................................160 Endnotes ........................................................................................................................165 iii Chapter 1: Introduction Autism is typically defined as a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting multiple aspects of an individual’s life. Current DSM-V diagnostic criteria include impairments in verbal and non-verbal communication, deficits in social interactions, and restricted and repetitive behaviors or interests.4 Frequently associated with these criteria are a pronounced preference for sameness and an aversion to breaks in routine, as well as hyper- or hypo-sensitivity to certain sensory stimuli.5 Autism is conceived of as existing along a spectrum, conjoining individuals in need of intensive daily supports at one end, with those who go largely unnoticed among their non-autistic peers at the other end. Although rates of occurrence have risen steadily over the last three decades, accompanied by an increase in research,6 societal awareness, and cultural representation, there is still no definitive etiology of autism beyond a collection of risk factors.7 In my view, each inconclusive attempt to determine a cause corresponds to a speculative theory about what autism is. These range from the psychogenic and the environmental, to the neurobiological and the genetic. Regardless of the varying degrees of
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Parent-Of-Origin Effects in Autism Identified Through Genome-Wide Linkage Analysis of 16,000 Snps
    Parent-Of-Origin Effects in Autism Identified through Genome-Wide Linkage Analysis of 16,000 SNPs Delphine Fradin1,2, Keely Cheslack-Postava3, Christine Ladd-Acosta2, Craig Newschaffer4, Aravinda Chakravarti5, Dan E. Arking5, Andrew Feinberg2, M. Daniele Fallin1* 1 Department of Epidemiology, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America, 2 Department of Medicine, Center for Epigenetics, Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America, 3 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America, 4 Department of Epidemiology, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America, 5 Center for Complex Disease Genomics, McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America Abstract Background: Autism is a common heritable neurodevelopmental disorder with complex etiology. Several genome-wide linkage and association scans have been carried out to identify regions harboring genes related to autism or autism spectrum disorders, with mixed results. Given the overlap in autism features with genetic abnormalities known to be associated with imprinting, one possible reason for lack of consistency would be the influence of parent-of-origin effects that may mask the ability to detect linkage and association. Methods and Findings: We have performed a genome-wide linkage scan that accounts for potential parent-of-origin effects using 16,311 SNPs among families from the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange (AGRE) and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) autism repository. We report parametric (GH, Genehunter) and allele-sharing linkage (Aspex) results using a broad spectrum disorder case definition.
    [Show full text]
  • Footer Text Here
    1 | [footer text here] 2 | [footer text here] • The reason I wanted to give this talk is because I have come to understand that a lot of what we know for sure about autism, just isn’t so. We have developed services for autistic people which are based on the belief that autism is primarily a psychological problem characterized by deficits in social understanding, restricted behaviors and interests, and cognition. But I have come to believe that autism is better accommodated and supported when it is understood as a neurological condition. [pause] Increasingly, people working in a neurological paradigm are achieving remarkably good outcomes, especially for those who don’t speak or whose speech is unreliable communication, and for those with prominent symptoms of dyspraxia. Dyspraxia is difficulty coordinating movement. 3 | [footer text here] • Ten years ago, we thought that autism was a thing. Find the gene! Maybe it’s vaccines? It’s an epidemic and a crisis! We’ve mostly moved through that, thankfully. But remnants of it sometimes rear its ugly head on occasion. • A diagnosis of autism doesn’t correlate with any specific trait or characteristic. People can be super smart or have significant cognitive challenges. They can be organized or have executive function problems. They can be a competitive surfer or use a wheelchair. They may or may not have seizures. They may have normal, very acute or scrambled senses. They may be blind or deaf. They may be polite and regulated to a fault, or have significant anxiety, behavioral, or mental health problems. • Historically, autism was defined by psychiatrists who were rooted in early 20th Century cultural ideas about intelligence, eugenics, and social hygiene.
    [Show full text]
  • On the Mystery of Human Consciousness
    On the mystery of human consciousness Egon Gál 23 August 2007 Philosophers and natural scientists regularly dismiss consciousness as irrelevant. However, even its critics agree that consciousness is less a problem than a mystery. One way into the mystery is through an understanding of autism. It started with a letter from Michaela Martinková: Dear Egon Gál, Our eldest son, aged almost eight, has Asperger’s Syndrome (AS). It is a diagnosis that falls into the autistic spectrum, but his IQ is very much above average. In an effort to find out how he thinks, I decided that I must find out how we think, and so I read into the cognitive sciences and epistemology. I found what I needed there, although I have an intense feeling that precisely the way of thinking of such people as our son is missing from the mosaic of these sciences. And I think that this missing piece could rearrange the whole mosaic. In the book Philosophy and the Cognitive Sciences, [1] you write, among other things: “Actually the only handicap so far observed in these children (with autism and AS) is that they cannot use human psychology. They cannot postulate intentional states in their own minds and in the minds of other people.” I think that deeper knowledge of autism, and especially of Asperger’s Syndrome as its version found in people with higher IQ in the framework of autism, could be immensely enriching for the cognitive sciences. I am convinced that these people think in an entirely different way from us. [2] Why the present interest in autism? It is generally known that some people whose diagnosis falls under Asperger’s Syndrome, namely people with Asperger’s Syndrome and high-functional autism, show a remarkable combination of highly above-average intelligence and well below-average social ability.
    [Show full text]
  • Decreased Amygdala Functional Connectivity in Adolescents with Autism a Resting-State Fmri Study
    Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging 257 (2016) 47–56 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Psychiatry Research Neuroimaging journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/psychresns Decreased amygdala functional connectivity in adolescents with autism: A resting-state fMRI study crossmark ⁎ Xiaonan Guo, Xujun Duan , Zhiliang Long1, Heng Chen1, Yifeng Wang, Junjie Zheng, ⁎ Youxue Zhang, Rong Li, Huafu Chen Center for Information in BioMedicine, Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, PR China ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: The human brain undergoes dramatic changes in amygdala-related functional connectivity network during Amygdala Theory of Autism adolescence. Given that the amygdala is a vital component of the “social brain”, the Amygdala Theory of Autism Thalamus has been proposed to account for atypical patterns of socio-emotional behavior in autism. Most of the previous Putamen neuroimaging evidence has concentrated on local functional or structural abnormalities of the amygdala in relation to social deficits in autism, rather than on its integrated role as part of larger brain networks. To examine whether functional integration pattern of the amygdala is altered in autism, the current study examined sixty-five adolescent subjects (30 autism and 35 healthy controls, 12–18 years old) from two independent datasets (UCLA and Leuven) of the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange. Whole-brain resting- state functional connectivity maps seeded in the amygdala were calculated and compared between patient and control groups. Compared with healthy controls, adolescents with autism showed decreased functional connectivity between the amygdala and subcortical regions in both datasets, including the bilateral thalamus and right putamen.
    [Show full text]
  • Autism Entangled – Controversies Over Disability, Sexuality, and Gender in Contemporary Culture
    Autism Entangled – Controversies over Disability, Sexuality, and Gender in Contemporary Culture Toby Atkinson BA, MA This thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Sociology Department, Lancaster University February 2021 1 Declaration I declare that this thesis is my own work and has not been submitted in substantially the same form for the award of a higher degree elsewhere. Furthermore, I declare that the word count of this thesis, 76940 words, does not exceed the permitted maximum. Toby Atkinson February 2021 2 Acknowledgements I want to thank my supervisors Hannah Morgan, Vicky Singleton, and Adrian Mackenzie for the invaluable support they offered throughout the writing of this thesis. I am grateful as well to Celia Roberts and Debra Ferreday for reading earlier drafts of material featured in several chapters. The research was made possible by financial support from Lancaster University and the Economic and Social Research Council. I also want to thank the countless friends, colleagues, and family members who have supported me during the research process over the last four years. 3 Contents DECLARATION ......................................................................................... 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................. 3 ABSTRACT .............................................................................................. 9 PART ONE: ........................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Becoming Autistic: How Do Late Diagnosed Autistic People
    Becoming Autistic: How do Late Diagnosed Autistic People Assigned Female at Birth Understand, Discuss and Create their Gender Identity through the Discourses of Autism? Emily Violet Maddox Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of Sociology and Social Policy September 2019 1 Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................................... 5 ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................................................... 6 ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................................................................. 7 CHAPTER ONE ................................................................................................................................................. 8 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. 8 1.1 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES ........................................................................................................................................ 8 1.2 TERMINOLOGY ................................................................................................................................................ 14 1.3 OUTLINE OF CHAPTERS ....................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • The Apres-Coup, Apres Coup: Concerning Jean Laplanche Problématiques VI
    The Apres-Coup, Apres Coup: Concerning Jean Laplanche Problématiques VI. L’Après-Coup1 Sergio Benvenuto Italian Council for Scientific Research Abstract Here the author examines the question of après-coup (afterwardsness) in psychoanalysis, commenting in particular on Jean Laplanche’s book, Après-Coup. The author appreciates Laplanche’s determination to avoid either a positivist interpretation of après-coup (as a “delay-action bomb”, as simply a delayed psychic effect) or an hermeneutic interpretation that makes of it a post-factum re-signification of past events. Yet at the same time, the author shows that Laplanche’s solution— which assumes an initial trauma to the subject, who must “translate” an ambiguous and enigmatic message originating from an adult other—ends up being, in effect, a clever combination of the two approaches, positivist and hermeneutic, that Laplanche was trying to avoid. Laplanche advances a much too linear theory, placing “the other” (that is, the desire of the adult) at the beginning of the process, while Lacan’s approach to après-coup opens up far more complex and disturbing perspectives for psychoanalysis. The author, having shown the limitations of Laplanche’s result (“the primacy of the other”), proposes his own interpretation of après-coup, wherein it would connect, in a unique way, the cause and the sense of the psychic world: a subsequent event in some way makes the sense of a preceding event to function as the cause of later psychic phenomena or symptoms. Introduction In time, later, we realize that the question of nachträglich – après-coup in French – is one of the central knots of psychoanalysis.
    [Show full text]
  • The Persistence of Fad Interventions in the Face of Negative Scientific Evidence: Facilitated Communication for Autism As a Case Example
    Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention ISSN: 1748-9539 (Print) 1748-9547 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tebc20 The persistence of fad interventions in the face of negative scientific evidence: Facilitated communication for autism as a case example Scott O. Lilienfeld, Julia Marshall, James T. Todd & Howard C. Shane To cite this article: Scott O. Lilienfeld, Julia Marshall, James T. Todd & Howard C. Shane (2014) The persistence of fad interventions in the face of negative scientific evidence: Facilitated communication for autism as a case example, Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention, 8:2, 62-101, DOI: 10.1080/17489539.2014.976332 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17489539.2014.976332 Published online: 02 Feb 2015. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 5252 View related articles View Crossmark data Citing articles: 1 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=tebc20 Download by: [University of Lethbridge] Date: 05 October 2015, At: 05:52 Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention, 2014 Vol. 8, No. 2, 62–101, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17489539.2014.976332 EBP Advancement Corner The persistence of fad interventions in the face of negative scientific evidence: Facilitated communication for autism as a case example Scott O. Lilienfeld1, Julia Marshall1, James T. Todd2 & Howard C. Shane3 1Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA, 2Department of Psychology, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI, USA, 3Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA ................................................................................................................................................. Abstract Communication disorder and mental health professionals may assume that once novel clinical techniques have been refuted by research, they will be promptly abandoned.
    [Show full text]
  • Psychoanalytic Discourse Reading Freud
    Psychoanalytic Discourse Issue 4 - October, 2017 ISSN 2472 2472 Jean Laplanche’s Après-Coup - Problématiques VI Published 2017, New York: The Unconscious in Translation Owen Hewitson1 This collection, comprising Laplanche’s lecture series of 1989-1990, traces the evolution of a single term in Freud’s work – Nachträglichkeit. Après-coup is the sixth in the series of Problématiques, Laplanche’s long- running course that began in 1970. It was delivered two years after the publication of his major late work, 1987’s New Foundations for Psychoanalysis, into which Laplanche distilled his five previous Problématiques (Laplanche, 1987). Taken as a whole, the series cannot help but invite comparisons to the Seminar series of Jacques Lacan. Both men worked at the same time, in the same city, and in the same format of year-long public lectures. Lacan was Laplanche’s analyst, Laplanche his student. Indeed, it was actually Lacan who, in his “Rome Discourse” of 1953, first reappraised the term Nachträglichkeit (Lacan, 2006, p. 213). Laplanche gives him fair credit for this, though when compared to the long article devoted to the term in 1967’s magisterial The Language of Psychoanalysis – a work for which Laplanche is most famous in the English-speaking world – the reader might consider Lacan's treatment somewhat scant (Laplanche & Pontalis, 2004). Both men’s project is by their own accounts the same: a re-reading of Freud. Lacan’s is perhaps the more ‘creative’ re-reading, but Laplanche’s certainly the more honest, both to the totality of Freud’s thought and to the problems it confronts.
    [Show full text]
  • The Developmental Trajectory of Contour Integration in Autism Spectrum Disorders
    City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2014 The Developmental Trajectory of Contour Integration in Autism Spectrum Disorders Ted S. Altschuler Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1417 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] The developmental trajectory of contour integration in autism spectrum disorders By TED S. ALTSCHULER A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Psychology, sub program in Cognitive Neuroscience, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2014 © 2014 TED S. ALTSCHULER All Rights Reserved ii The manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Psychology in satisfaction of the Dissertation requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy John J. Foxe, PhD Chair of Examining Committee Maureen O’Connor, PhD Executive Officer Sophie Molholm, PhD Jennifer Mangels, PhD Hilary Gomes, PhD Lynne E. Bernstein, Phd Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii Abstract The developmental trajectory of contour integration in autism spectrum disorders by TED S. ALTSCHULER Adviser: John J. Foxe, PhD Sensory input is inherently ambiguous and complex, so perception is believed to be achieved by combining incoming sensory information with prior knowledge. One model envisions the grouping of sensory features (the local dimensions of stimuli) to be the outcome of a predictive process relying on prior experience (the global dimension of stimuli) to disambiguate possible configurations those elements could take.
    [Show full text]
  • Freud: Memory and the Metapsychological Witch
    Freud: Memory and the Metapsychological Witch Manuel Batsch Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University College London 2015 I, Manuel Batsch confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisors, Juliet Mitchell and Liz Allison for their excellent guidance and generous encouragement during this project. Thanks to their benevolent attention and intelligent advice, I was able to construct and structure my research question. Our supervision meetings were crucial steps in the writing of my thesis and they also remain in my memory as transformative existential moments. I was impressed by the accuracy with which they read and corrected my drafts, a process from which I learnt a great deal. Psychoanalysis and Feminism is an important book in my inner library and often, when I feel threatened by a kind of intellectual inertia, I just have to reread some of its passages to regain a pleasure for thoughts. The seminars and supervisions with Juliet Mitchell have always triggered the same pleasure and inspired in me a form of bravery in thinking. I have been working under the supervision of Liz Allison since my MSc dissertation and throughout these years she has given me the confidence to compose academic work in English. Amongst many other things, I owe to her my introduction to a completely new reading of Derrida. Our Bion reading group was also extremely helpful and had a significant impact on my understanding of metapsychology after Freud.
    [Show full text]
  • The Diagnosis of Autism: from Kanner to DSM‑III to DSM‑5 and Beyond
    Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-04904-1 S:I AUTISM IN REVIEW: 1980-2020: 40 YEARS AFTER DSM-III The Diagnosis of Autism: From Kanner to DSM‑III to DSM‑5 and Beyond Nicole E. Rosen1 · Catherine Lord1 · Fred R. Volkmar2,3 Accepted: 27 January 2021 © The Author(s) 2021 Abstract In this paper we review the impact of DSM-III and its successors on the feld of autism—both in terms of clinical work and research. We summarize the events leading up to the inclusion of autism as a “new” ofcial diagnostic category in DSM-III, the subsequent revisions of the DSM, and the impact of the ofcial recognition of autism on research. We discuss the uses of categorical vs. dimensional approaches and the continuing tensions around broad vs. narrow views of autism. We also note some areas of current controversy and directions for the future. Keywords Autism · History · Dimensional · Categorical · DSM It has now been nearly 80 years since Leo Kanner’s (1943) frst described by Kanner has changed across the past few classic description of infantile autism. Ofcial recognition of decades. When we refer to the concept in general, we will this condition took almost 40 years; several lines of evidence use the term autism, and when we refer to particular, ear- became available in the 1970s that demonstrated the valid- lier diagnostic constructs, we will use more specifc terms ity of the diagnostic concept, clarifed early misperceptions like autism spectrum disorder, infantile autism, and autistic about autism, and illustrated the need for clearer approaches disorder.
    [Show full text]