In Autism Research and Development for the Welfare of Individuals Afflicted with the Disorder - Literature review Example

In this day and age, research has unearthed so much information about illnesses and human disorders. One area where research has flourished is on Autism. Autism and its associated spectrum of disorders are severe disorders of communication and social relatedness. It is estimated that more than two out of every 1,000 children in the United States are affected by autism or autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and, according to a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that number may be a high as six per 1,000.

This means that there are at least 1.5 million children and adults with autism in America, making it one of the country’s most common developmental disabilities (Weaver and Hersey, 2005). The term autism was, for years, only used in some circles of psychiatrists and psychologists and is believed to have been introduced around 1911 by a noted Swiss psychiatrist, Eugene Bleuler, who coined the term “autism” in schizophrenic patients to describe an individual’s exclusion of the outside world and withdrawal from social life and who screened themselves off and were self-absorbed (Frith, 1989).

In 1943, Leo Kanner, who is considered the first psychologist to describe autism, wrote “Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact”, in which he described eleven children who had an apparently rare syndrome which he termed “extreme autistic aloneness.” (Kanner, 1943). Because these children’s symptoms started early in life, Kanner described autism as a specific condition called “Infantile Autism”.