Evidence-based practices in autism: Where we started

Abstract

Sadly, the early history of intervention research in autism (1943-1980) can be relatively briefly summarized. In his initial description of autism, Kanner (1943) provided some follow-up information on the cases he had seen. Apart from one child dumped in a school for the feeble minded (Kanner 1943: 249), the other children (then between 9 and 11) had shown some development of social skills although fundamental social difficulties remained. Kanner's original paper was not particularly concerned with intervention and, over the years, the varying conceptualizations of autism have led to marked changes in intervention. The emphasis on parental success and some social oddity (which was also noted by Kanner, who emphasized it because he believed the disorder to be congenital and hence not likely entirely attributable to psychopathology in the parents) led various clinicians in the 1950s to postulate a strong role for experience in the pathogenesis of autism (Bettelheim 1950; Despert 1971) and to mistaken attempts to fix the child through psychotherapy. Such attempts persist in some countries, particularly France, to the present day even though prominent analysts, such as Anna Freud, cautioned against such notions (see the review by Riddle in 1987). © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.