ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a history of ASD and Asperger’s Syndrome, and discusses the evolving meanings of the autism diagnosis over the decades. It reviews the sometimes controversial roles of those, including Hans Asperger and Leo Kanner, who raised awareness of the condition. The authors discuss the diagnostic changes in each edition of the DSM and how the ASD diagnosis has taken a journey from a loosely identified set of conditions, to a severe syndrome caused by parents, to a biological illness needing a cure, to an identifiable spectrum of characteristics.
