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First time Autism is said
Autism was a word used to describe schizophrenic patients. -
Leo Kanner M.D
Leo publishes a paper about 11 children who are highly intelligent, but have a powerful desire to be alone. He names their condition, "early infantile autism." -
Asperger Sydrome
Hans Asperger describes a "milder" form of autism called Aspergers. Where the child is still intelligent, but has trouble with social interactions and specific interests -
Bruno Bettelheim
Bruno has a theory that "refrigerator moms" are the reason their child has autism. That they are not loving their child enough. They were looking at life experiences and not biological reasons. -
Twins
Research on twins shows that autism is genetic and biological differences. -
Infantile Autism
Infantile Autism has officially been added to DSM and separated completely from childhood schizophrenia. -
Autism Disorder
DSM replaces infantile autism with autism disorder. -
Therapy
Ivar Lovaas Ph.D publishes a paper about how intensive behavior therapy can help children who are diagnosed. -
Rain Man
The movie "RainMan" is released starring Dustin Hoffman as an autistic savant who has great memory and math skills. This educated the world on what autism was like, but not every case is the same. -
Special Education
The government makes autism a special education category. Public schools start identifying and providing support services. -
Asperger Sydrome
Aspergers is added to the DSM and is considered to show that there are milder cases where the person is more high functioning. -
Vaccinations
A study was released that the measles and mumps vaccine can cause autism. (debunked) -
Vaccinations
Vaccine manufacturers remove a mercury based preservative from all routine vaccines due to public fears that it was linked to autism. (debunked) -
CDC
The CDC releases that 1 in 110 children have autism spectrum disorders. -
DSM
The DSM-5 folds all subcategories of the condition into one umbrella diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Asperger's Syndrome is no longer considered a separate condition. ASD is defined by two categories: 1) Impaired social communication and/or interaction. 2) Restricted and/or repetitive behaviors