History of Autism

Since the 1980s, autism has seen a sharp increase among its sufferers. This could possibly be either because of better early detection or perhaps difficulties with environmental issues. Many people consider autism to be a fairly new disease but the truth of the matter is that it probably has been around for quite some time. The history of autism is rather interesting and somewhat sad. Because of people’s inability to identify the disease in people that were suffering from it, they were often mistreated and sometimes worse.

One of the first potential descriptions of a person with autism was given by Martin Luther in a book that he called Table Talk. It was a 12-year-old boy who, more than likely, was suffering from a severe form of autism. Because he was unable to identify the disease, he thought that the boy was possessed by demons and that he should be suffocated. Another early history of autism is found and 1798. In this case, a feral child was caught that showed that he potentially had a severe form of autism. His fate was a lot better, however, than the one that was talked about by Martin Luther. He was treated behaviorally in order to help him to gain the social skills and communication that he lacked.

It wasn’t until 1938, however, that a man by the name of Hans Asperger began to do some serious research into the disease and even gave it a name. He identified a lot of the characteristics that are notable among many autistics and helped to bring the disease into the limelight where it belonged. Since that time, autism awareness has really become a social issue that many millions of people can identify with. Unfortunately, the disease has seemed to take more of a hold in society that many people had considered possible.

Although the history of autism is a sad one, many diseases have shared the same history. It would be interesting to know if we look back on today’s autism standards a hundred years from now and wonder how we could have been so barbaric.