Newsgroups: bit.listserv.autism
Date:         Fri, 9 Oct 1992 17:04:22 -0400
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         "John M. Wobus" <jmwobus@MAILBOX.SYR.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Kanner's syndrome
              07 Oct 92 21:46:31 +0900." <9210071153.AA18935@mailbox.syr.edu>

"(Lyle Lexier)" <lexier@SFU.CA> writes:
>Is it possible to have Kanner's syndrome and be high-functioning?  I
>was autistic from birth, slow start (e.g. in learning to walk, being
>toilet trained, not talking until the age of 5 etc.), but now I run,
>talk too much, am over- friendly, and besides I go to university in
>Computing Science and Mathematics, drive a car, taught myself piano &
>guitar, speak three other languages other than English, etc.
>
>Is it possible that I have Kanner's syndrome since my autism started from
>birth?


Carolyn writes:
>I can't see why not! Wasn't Kanner's Syndrome originally called 'Infantile
>Autism' - meaning that the child appeared to develop 'normally' at a later
>stage. I might be thinking of one of the other supposedly different types that
>have received different labels over the years..... but I think they're all
>High Functioning Autism and it's just the age at which the majority of the
>symptoms seem to disappear that is the major difference between all of them...
>with the exception of a number of different subtypes that may exist.
>
>You've always sounded HFA to me and I wouldn't worry too much about which
>particular label any of the medical profession wants to attach to us, we're
>pretty much alike under the surface. :-)
>
>If my belief that the development of autism is stress-related has any
>foundation in fact, then the onset could occur at any stage in the first few
>years: pre-, peri- or post-natally. If the symptoms were present from birth,
>then I would suspect that the 'stress-incident' occurred sometime before that
>... so according to the way I view things - Yes, it is possible!


"Kanner's Syndrome" = "Autism",  at least autism as we are talking
about here.

Kanner is credit with first describing what we call Autism and what he
called "Infantile Autism".  My dictionary defines Autism as "emotional
disorder characterized by a profound withdrawal form contact with
people".  Before Kanner, that sort of thing was called Autism, but
after Kanner publicized his find ("Kanner's Syndrome" or "Infantile
Autism"), in the minds of many, the word Autism has come to mean
Kanner's Syndrome.  Few people still describe emotionally-withdrawn
adults as autistic.

Kanner didn't exactly pin down whether his syndrome was an emotional
disorder though he offered some theories.  Now, it is generally
accepted to be something different from the emotional disorder
previously known as autism and is generally accepted to be due to
physical abnormalities of the brain.

Kanner basically discovered Infantile Autism among relatively
high-functioning children.  This is natural because one couldn't easily
write them off as MR when in some ways they demonstrated
higher-than-average intelligence.  Since then, it has been observed
that a lot of MR people display some of the same symptoms as the
high-functioning children that Kanner observed, thus Infantile Autism
and MR are somewhat independent of each other in that one can suffer
from either one without the other or from both together.  Lately, the
accomplishments of facilitated communication have suggested that a lot
of low-functioning autistic children are not MR at all.

Years after Kanner wrote his first "Autism" paper, he wrote a paper
about what the children were like after they grew up.  Some led very
close to normal lives (in a world which didn't try to accomodate autism
as much as we do now) and some could not function at all in society
without assistance.


John Wobus
Syracuse University
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU