Autism in the Twentieth Century: An Evolution of a Controversial Condition
Open accessAbstract
Autism spectrum disorder (i.e. autism) is clinically conceptualised as a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition diagnosed by examining impairments in communication, social interaction, and a rigidity in thinking. The twentieth century was an important one for autism as it was labelled and classified during this time, along with a rise of many different voices and perspectives regarding its classification as a psychiatric disability. On one hand, great advancements have been made in terms of understanding the condition, the aetiology, and treatments, and on the other, there has been a rise of critical thinking and political issues for the inclusion agenda. This chapter discusses these movements and changes in thinking.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The 1990s FC research was colored by the prevailing deficits-based ideological framework surrounding autism at the time.
“Following the evolutionary trajectory of autism research (O’Reilly et al., 2019), the 1990s FC research was undoubtedly colored by the prevailing deficits-based ideological framework surrounding autism at the time.”
From Perspective: Presuming Autistic Communication Competence and Reframing Facilitated Communication (2022) · cites this paper as O’Reilly et al., 2019
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Which terms should be used to describe autism? Perspectives from the UK autism community
Kenny, L., Hattersley, C., Molins, B., Buckley, C., Povey, C., & Pellicano, E. (2016) · Autism · doi:10.1177/1362361315588200 · Cited by 1,941 · see citing works
The Social Construction of Illness: Key Insights and Policy Implications
Conrad, P., & Barker, K. K. (2010) · Journal of Health and Social Behavior · doi:10.1177/0022146510383495 · Cited by 888 · see citing works
Subgrouping the Autism Spectrum: Reflections on DSM-5
Lai, M.-C., Lombardo, M. V., Chakrabarti, B., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2013) · PLoS Biology · doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001544 · Cited by 330 · see citing works
The DSM and its lure of legitimacy
Lafrance, M. N., & McKenzie-Mohr, S. (2013) · Feminism & Psychology · doi:10.1177/0959353512467974 · Cited by 102 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 47
- Khalid Karim, Alvina Ali, and Michelle O'Reilly, A Practical Guide to Mental Health Problems in Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder: 'It's Not Just Their ASD!' (London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2014).
- Majia Nadesan, Constructing Autism: Unravelling the 'Truth' and Understanding the Social (New York: Routledge, 2005).
- Leo Kanner, "Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact," Nervous Child 2 (1943): 217-250.
- Hans Asperger, "Die 'Autistischen Psychopathen' im Kindesalter [Autistic Psychopaths in Childhood]" (in German), Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten 117 (1944): 76-136.
- Lorna Wing, "Language, Social and Cognitive Impairments in Autism and Severe Mental Retardation," Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 11, no. 1 (March 1981): 31-44.
- Khalid Karim, "The Value of Conversation Analysis: A Child Psychiatrist's Perspective," in The Palgrave Handbook of Child Mental Health: Discourse and Conversation Studies, eds. Michelle O'Reilly and Jessica Nina Lester (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 25-41.
- Bruno Bettelheim, The Empty Fortress (New York: Free Press, 1967).
- Michelle O'Reilly and Jessica Nina Lester, Examining Mental Health Through Social Constructionism: The Language of Mental Health (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2017).
- Debra Jackson and Judy Mannix, "Giving Voice to the Burden of Blame: A Feminist Study of Mothers' Experiences of Mother Blaming," International Journal of Nursing Practice 10, no. 4 (August 2004): 150-158.
- Jo Phelan, "Genetic Bases for Mental Illness-A Cure for Stigma?" Trends in Neurosciences 25 (2002): 430-431.
- Karim, "The Value of Conversation Analysis." See also: Majia Nadesan, "Constructing Autism: A Brief Genealogy," in Autism and Representation, ed. Mark Osteen (New York: Routledge, 2008), 78-95. 20. Ibid.
- Kathleen Jones, Taming the Troublesome Child (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1999).
- Rudi Dallos and Ros Draper, An Introduction to Family Therapy: Systemic Theory and Practice (3rd edition) (Berkshire: Open University Press, 2010).
- Karim, "The Value of Conversation Analysis." 27. American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th edition) (Washington: American Psychiatric Association, 2013).
- Karim, "The Value of Conversation Analysis." 29. George Raines, "Comment: The New Nomenclature," American Journal of Psychiatry 109 (1953): 548-549.
- Shadia Kawa and James Giordano, "A Brief Historicity of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: Issues and Implications for the Future of Psychiatric Canon and Practice," Philosophy, Ethics and Humanities in Medicine 7, no. 2 (December 2012). https://doi. org/10.1186/1747-5341-7-2. · DOI
- Edward Shorter, A History of Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac (New York: Wiley, 1997).
- Allan Horwitz, Creating Mental Illness (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
- Rick Mayes and Allan Horwitz, "DSM-III and the Revolution in the Classification of Mental Illness," Journal of the History of the Behavioural Sciences 41, no. 3 (Summer 2005): 249-267.
- Fred Volkmar and Joe McPartland, "From Kanner to DSM-5: Autism as an Evolving Concept," Annual Review Clinical Psychology 10, no. 1 (December 2014): 193-212.
- Lorna Wing and Judith Gould, "Severe Impairments of Social Interaction and Associated Abnormalities in Children: Epidemiology and Classification," Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 9, no. 1 (March 1979): 11-29.
- Helena Halmari, "Political Correctness, Euphemism, and Language Change: The Case of 'People First'," Journal of Pragmatics 43, no. 3 (February 2011): 828-840. See also: John Robison, Be Different: Adventures of a Free-Range Aspergian with Practical Advice for Aspergians, Misfits, Families and Teachers (New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2011).
- Karen Hagan, Discourses in Autism Assessment and Diagnosis (Unpublished PhD thesis, The Open University, Milton Keynes, 2018).
- Kenny et al., "Which Terms Should Be Used?" 59. Jo Phelan, "Geneticization of Deviant Behaviour and Consequences for Stigma: The Case of Mental Illness," Journal of Health and Social Behaviour 46, no. 4 (2005): 307-322.
- Sheila Mehta and Amerigo Farina, "Is Being 'Sick' Really Better? Effect of the Disease View of Mental Disorder on Stigma," Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 16, no. 4 (1997): 405-419.
- Carolyn Schanen, "Epigenetics of Autism Spectrum Disorders," Human Mol Genetics 15, no. 2 (2006): 138-150.
- Pellicano et al., A Future Made Together. 64. Rebecca Muhle, Stephanie Trentacoste, and Isabelle Rapin, "The Genetics of Autism," Paediatrics 113 (2004): 472-486.
- Mitzi Waltz, "Autism=Death: The Social and Medical Impact of a Catastrophic Medical Model of Autistic Spectrum Disorders," Popular Narrative Media 1, no. 1 (2008): 13-24.
- Michael Orsini and Joyce Davidson, "Introduction: Critical Autism Studies, Notes on an Emerging Field," in Worlds of Autism: Across the Spectrum of Neurological Difference, eds. Joyce Davidson and Michael Orsini (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), 1-30.
- Michelle O'Reilly, Khalid Karim, and Jessica Nina Lester, "Should Autism Be Classified as a Mental Illness/Disability? Evidence from Empirical Work," in The Palgrave Handbook of Child Mental Health; Discourse and Conversation Studies, eds. Michelle O'Reilly and Jessica Nina Lester, (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 252-271.
- Sami Timimi, J. Gardner, and B. McCabe, The Myth of Autism (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
- Michael Staub, Madness Is Civilization (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011).
- Oliver Ralley, "The Rise of Anti-psychiatry: A Historical Review," History of Medicine Online (November 2012).
- Michel Foucault, History of Madness (trans. J. Murphy and J. Khalfa) (London: Routledge, 2006).
- David Ingleby, ed., "Understanding 'Mental Illness'," in The Politics of Mental Health (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981), 23-71.
- Phillip Thomas, "What Is Critical Psychiatry?" 85. Duncan Double, "The Limits of Psychiatry," British Medical Journal 324, no. 13 (April 2002): 900-904.
- Til Wykes and Felicity Callard, "Diagnosis, Diagnosis, Diagnosis: Towards DSM-5," Journal of Mental Health 19, no. 4 (August 2010): 301-304.
- Sarah Nettleton, The Sociology of Health and Illness (3rd edition) (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013).
- Stephen Gilson and Elizabeth DePoy, "Child Mental Health: A Discourse Community," in The Palgrave Handbook of Child Mental Health: Discourse and Conversation Studies, eds. Michelle O'Reilly and Jessica Nina Lester (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 117-138.
- Gil Eyal et al., The Autism Matrix: The Social Origins of the Autism Epidemic (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010).
- Tom Strong, "Brief Therapy and the DSM: 13 Possible Conversational Tensions," Journal of Brief Therapy 9, nos. 1-2 (2014): 1-12.
- Steven Kapp et al., "Deficit, Difference, or Both? Autism and Neurodiversity," Developmental Psychology 49, no. 1 (January 2013): 59-71. See also: Russell Razzaque and Lisa Wood, "Open Dialogue and Its Relevance to the NHS: Opinions of NHS Staff and Service Users," Community Mental Health Journal 51, no. 8 (November 2015): 931-938.
- Alicia Broderick and Ari Ne'eman, "Autism as Metaphor: Narrative and Counter Narrative," International Journal of Inclusive Education 12, nos. 5-6 (September 2008): 459-476. 100. Ruth Glynne-Owen, "Early Intervention and Autism: The Impact of Positivism and the Call for Change," International Journal of Children's Rights 18, no. 3 (January 2010): 405-416. 101. Majia Nadesan, Constructing Autism: Unravelling the 'Truth' and Understanding the Social (New York: Routledge, 2005). 102. Jessica Nina Lester and Trena Paulus, "'That Teacher Takes Everything Badly': Discursively Reframing Non-normative Behaviours in Therapy Sessions," International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 27, no. 5 (2014): 641-666. 103. Mark Osteen, ed., "Autism and Representation: A Comprehensive Introduction," in Autism and Representation (New York: Routledge, 2008), 1-47. 104. Hagan, Discourses in Autism. 105. Nick Hodge and Katherine Runswick-Cole, "Problematising Parent- Professional Partnerships in Education," Disability and Society 23, no. 6 (October 2008): 637-647. 106. Dorothy Broom and Roslyn Woodward, "Medicalisation Reconsidered: Toward a Collaborative Approach to Care," Sociology of Health and Illness 18, no. 3 (1996): 357-378. 107. Erik Parens, "On Good and Bad Forms of Medicalization," Bioethics 27, no. 1 (January 2013): 28-35. 108. O'Reilly and Lester, Examining Mental Health. 109. Kristin Bumiller, "Quirky Citizens: Autism and the Anti-normalization of Politics," Annual Meeting of the American Political Science 33, no. 4 (June 2008): 967-991. 110. Juanne Clarke and Gudrun van Amerom, "'Surplus Suffering': Differences Between Organizational Understandings of Asperger's Syndrome and Those People Who Claim the 'Disorder'," Disability and Society 22, no. 7 (November 2007): 761-776. 111. Olga Solomon, "Body in Autism: A View from Social Interaction," in Language, Body and Health, eds. Paul McPherron and Vaidehi Ramanathan (Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter, 2011), 105-144. 112. Nick Chown, "The Mismeasure of Autism: A Challenge to Orthodox Autism Theory," Autonomy, the Critical Journal of Interdisciplinary Autism Studies 1, no. 2 (May 2013): 1-10. 113. Jessica Nina Lester, Khalid Karim, and Michelle O'Reilly, "Autism Itself Actually Isn't a Disability: The Ideological Dilemmas of Negotiating a 'Normal' Versus 'Abnormal' Autistic Identity," Communication & Medicine 11, no. 2 (November 2015): 139-152. 114. Kenny et al., "Which Terms Should Be Used?" 115. Ibid. 116. Thomas Armstrong, Neurodiversity: Discovering the Extraordinary Gifts of Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Brain Differences (Cambridge: Da Capo, 2016). See also: Nobuo Masataka, "Implications of the Idea of Neurodiversity for Understanding the Origins of Developmental Disorders," Physics of Life Reviews 20 (November 2016): 85-108. 117. Francisco Ortega, "The Cerebral Subject and the Challenge of Neurodiversity," BioSocieties 4, no. 4 (December 2009): 25-445. 118. Dana Baker, The Politics of Neurodiversity: Why Public Policy Matters (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2011). 119. Ortega, "The Cerebral Subject." 120. Pier Jaarsma and Stellan Welin, "Autism as a Natural Human Variation: Reflections on the Claims of the Neurodiversity Movement," Health Care Analysis 20, no. 1 (March 2012): 20-30. 121. Michael Orsini, "Autism, Neurodiversity and the Welfare State: The Challenges of Accommodating Neurological Difference," Canadian Journal of Political Science 45, no. 4 (December 2012): 805-827. 122. Jaarsma and Welin, "Autism as a Natural Human Variation." 123.
- Andrew Fenton and Timothy Krahn, "Autism, Neurodiversity and Equality Beyond the 'Normal'," Journal of Ethics in Mental Health 2, no. 2 (November 2007): 1-6. 124. Katherine Runswick-Cole, "'Us' and 'Them': The Limits and Possibilities of a 'Politics of Neurodiversity' in Neoliberal Times," Disability & Society 29, no. 7 (May 2014): 1117-1129. 125. Charlotte Brownlow, "Presenting the Self: Negotiating a Label of Autism," Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability 35, no. 1 (March 2010): 14-21. 126. Baker, The Politics of Neurodiversity; Kapp et al., "Deficit, Difference, or Both?" 127. Pellicano and Stears, "Bridging Autism." 128. Waltz, "Autism=Death." 129. Ari Ne'eman, "The Future (and the Past) of Autism Advocacy, or Why the ASA's Magazine, The Advocate Wouldn't Publish This Piece," Disability Studies Quarterly 30, no. 1 (February 2010). See also: Runswick-Cole, "'Us' and 'Them'." 130. Brigitte Chamak, "Autism and Social Movements: French Parents' Associations and International Autistic Individuals' Organizations," Sociology of Health and Illness 30, no. 1 (2008): 76-96. 131. Simon Baron-Cohen, "Editorial Perspective: Neurodiversity-A Revolutionary Concept for Autism and Psychiatry," Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 58, no. 6 (May 2017): 744-747. 132. Kapp et al., "Deficit, Difference, or Both?" 133.
- Gillian Baird, Emily Simonoff, Andrew Pickles, et al., "Prevalence of Disorders of the Autism Spectrum in a Population Cohort of Children in South Thames: The Special Needs and Autism Project (SNAP)," Lancet 368, no. 9531 (2006): 210-215. 146. Ibid. 147. Karim et al., A Practical Guide to Mental Health. 148. Eyal et al., The Autism Matrix; Sami Timimi, "Autism Is Not a Scientifically Valid or Clinically Useful Diagnosis," British Medical Journal 343 (August 2011): d5105;
- Timimi et al., The Myth of Autism. 150. Felicity Thomas et al., "Moral Narratives and Mental Health: Rethinking Understandings of Distress and Healthcare Support in Contexts of Austerity and Welfare Reform," Palgrave Communications 4, no. 39 (April 2018): 2. 151. Kenny et al., "Which Terms Should Be Used?" 152. Orsini and Davidson, "Critical Autism Studies." 153.
- Jessica Nina Lester and Michelle O'Reilly, "Repositioning Disability in the Discourse of Our Times: A Study of the Everyday Lives of Children with Autism," in Education, Equity, and Economy, eds. George Noblit and William Pink (London: Springer, 2016), 133-160.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Perspective: Presuming Autistic Communication Competence and Reframing Facilitated Communication
Heyworth, M., Chan, T., & Lawson, W. (2022) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.864991 · Cited by 100 · see citing works
- Authors
- O’Reilly, M., Lester, J. N., & Kiyimba, N.
- Affiliations
- University of Leicester (GB)
- Indiana University Bloomington (US)
- University of Chester (GB)
- Corresponding author
- O’Reilly, Michelle
- Venue
- Mental Health in Historical Perspective
- Publisher
- Springer International Publishing
- Published
- 2019-09-17
- Pages
- 137-165
- ISSN
- 2634-6036 (ISSN-L)
- 2634-6044
- OpenAlex
- W2973937906
- Cited by
- 18
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 14.07
- Type
- book chapter
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Mental health in historical perspective (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- De Montfort University
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Disability Rights and Representation
- Keywords
- autism spectrum disorder, history of autism, 20th century, psychiatric classification, neurodevelopmental disorders, etiology, autism treatment, inclusion, disability politics, social interaction deficits, communication disorders
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review