ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 discussed how autism was first described and named by Leo Kanner in 1943 and Hans Asperger in 1944. Then, as now, autism was defined on the basis of behaviour. For Kanner, the essential and defining symptoms of autism were the child’s “autistic aloneness” and “obsessive desire for the preservation of sameness” (Kanner & Eisenberg 1956). Although Kanner’s early descriptions are very evocative, and many of the children with autism seen today conform exactly to the picture he drew, the diagnosis of autism has changed in a number of ways as more has been learnt about the disorder.
