Juniper Publishers- Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

  JUNIPER PUBLISHERS - OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL OF INTELLECTUAL & DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES Abstract The history of coming to grips with what autism is and its etiology has been tortuous -if not tortured. By 1908 the word autism was defined as a schizophrenic who was withdrawn or self-absorbed. Some decades later Leo Kannern [ 1 ] decided that autism was based on children with "a powerful desire for aloneness.” In the 1960's psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, picking up on another aspect of Kanner's [ 2 ] observations, thought autism was simply based upon mothers not loving their children enough. Then came the twin research studies which purported autism to be caused by genetics or biological differences in brain development. Yet the consensus that Autism is from an intrauterine infection had also been growing, bolstered more recently by Patterson's [ 3 ] and Fatemi's [ 4 ] studies. However, the question would still remain: which infection? This, of c...