ABSTRACT
Over the last quarter century, the prevalence of autism in the US has increased from one in 2,500 in 1989 to one in 68 in 2010 (Baio 2012). Explanations for the autism 'epidemic' either suggest that there was a real increase in the number of cases caused by environmental toxicity (Roberts et al.2007), or that it has resulted from a broadening of diagnostic criteria, along with increased public awareness and a greater availability of services. De-institutionalisation played a crucial role in the expansion of autism, however, not simply because the children were now at home and could be closely observed and diagnosed. From the 1940s onwards, the history of autism can be told as a series of attempts to bring this in-between domain into being. The irony is that it was not child psychiatry that managed to carve this in-between domain, but a completely different actor, namely, the parents of children with autism.
