Leo Kanner Theory Of Autism Research Paper
Susan and Joe of Omaha, Nebraska are trying to deal with the resent diagnoses of their two and a half year old girl Sophie with an Autism Spectrum Disorder. After coming to terms with their initial shock and grief they went to their doctor for answers. Some of their questions were, what causes autism, why Sophie, are there any cures and what can they do to help her become the most developed woman she can be? Like many other parents had heard before them they received vague and inadequate answers. The doctor told them that there is no known cause of autism and since researchers do not know the cause there is no cure and no agreed upon way of helping a child with autism. Susan and Joe were astonished that so little is known about the causes
…show more content…
of this disorder
With organizations such as Autism Speaks, the Autism Society of America, and Autism One, raising the awareness of the American people, and with the rising statistical chance of a parent’s child being born with autism it is crucially important that the cause or causes of autism be discovered. Many different causes have been theorized over the decades without any conclusive answers. In order to understand the main three currently possible causes of autism it is important to understand what autism is and a little about its history. A history that is sadly rifled with attempted misplacement of blame instead of an attitude of trying to discern the true cause(s) of autism. Before I delve into the causative history of autism it is important that you understand what is currently known about autism.
Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are, according to the CDC, “is a collection of developmental disabilities characterized by impairments in social interaction and communication and by restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior” (Baio, 2012.). Indicators that a person has an ASD are characteristically obvious before the age of 3 years(Gillberg, et al. 1990). Autistic disorder, sometimes called autism or classical ASD, is the most extreme form of ASD, while other conditions along the spectrum contain a milder form. These forms include “Asperger syndrome, and childhood disintegrative disorder and pervasive developmental disorder”(Boyse, 2008) .Although ASD fluctuates considerably in character and harshness, it is present in all cultural and socioeconomic conglomerates and touches every age group. Researchers approximate that one out of eighty eight children age eight will have an ASD. Males are more than “four times likely to have an ASD than females” (Stewert, K. 2007). The multifaceted nature of these different disorders, combined with an absence of biologic markers for diagnosis and deviations in clinical classifications over the course of time, generates a multitude of obstacles in monitoring the pervasiveness of ASDs. Without any established cause or causes of ASDs, it is impossible to conjecture how to help people and families already struggling with Autism.
There have been many different theories on the causative agent or agents of Autism, ever since its discovery by child psychiatrist Leo Kanner in 1943.
In the nineteen forties, Autism in a child was thought to have stemmed from the poor parenting skills of the mother. It was assumed that the mother did not provide an emotionally stable or secure environment for the child. This instability led to the afflicted child’s malady of Autism. These mothers were given the name of “refrigerator mothers”. This theory was substantiated when Kanner published several articles that gave credibility to the idea that a cold and neglectful mother was the cause of autism. At this time if you r child was diagnosed with autism you the mother would be immediately blamed. You would be viewed as a unfeeling, frigid and harsh woman that had brought this “hardship” upon herself. As a mother it wasn’t enough that you had to accept that your child had a mental disorder you also had to live with the fact that is was your fault and everyone knew it. Blaming the mother would be a pattern that would continue for another …show more content…
decade.
Rimland a psychologist and father of an autistic child, came to believe that the "refrigerator mother" theory was established on mere incidental and subjective substantiation. In 1964 Rimland’s book Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implications for a Neural Theory of Behavior was published. In this book Rimland probed the theory that autism was the consequence of an unloving relationship between a parent and their child. He offered the first concrete argument that autism is a biological ailment. (Rimland, 1981.) His idea that autism stemmed from a biological cause would be studied in much greater detail twenty years later. Until then several other causes of autism where proposed.
In the nineteen fifties it was discovered that in the mid niteen fories “ninety percent” (Miller, N. 2001)of children with autism came from parents with high socioeconomic status. Autism was thought at this time to be form of mental retardation, and retardation was thought to stem from mentally unfavorable parents, researchers were puzzled by the high incidences of autistic children coming from well-educated high earning families.
One interesting theory about autism surfaced in the early ninteen sixtys by looking back at the fledgling stage of autism understanding in the forties. Later researchers, with the value of hindsight, speculated that there might be a connection between autism and the pertussis vaccine that was first being administered in the late nineteen thirties. This vaccine was very expensive and was only administered to children of wealthy parents who could afford it. This fact would seem to correlate with the earlier observed statistic that “ninety percent” (Miller, 2001) of children who were diagnosed with autism were from wealthy families. This seemed in the 1960s to be a viable explanation despite the evidence being very flimsy and circumstantial.
However, by the late 1960s parents all over the country, within every scholastic and earning bracket, were pursuing help for their autistic children. Socioeconomic inequalities started to vanish during this period. Today, autism is evenly distributed among all social classes and ethnic groups. Once again this perplexed the researchers. Many of these researchers simply decided that prior studies were faulty. Others who would not give up on the previously maintained belief that vaccines were the cause proffered up this explanation; free vaccinations at public health clinics, which would later make vaccines widely available to children of all social and economic backgrounds, didn 't yet exist in the 1940s and 1950s. Despite this explanation the consensus in the medical community does not lay the cause of autism at early vaccination’s doors.
Today there are three main theories as to what causes autism and related ASDs. Since these theories have not been disproved and have a chance of being correct, I will extrapolate upon them in slightly greater detail than the ones before. One of them is the theory that autism is a caused by genetics. Researchers agree that the best way to study genetics effect on autism is to study identical twins. Identical twins or monozygotic twins share virtually the same genetic makeup making them ideal candidates to study any links between genetic. Previous twin studies have revealed that when one identical twin had an ASD, “the opposite twin had a greater chance of having an ASD than not”(Digitale, 2011). Identical twins share effectively 100 percent of their genes, this helps substantiate the role of genetics in autism. Something that causes concern for experts in this field that consider genetics to be the cause of autism is that not 100 percent of ASD cases affect both identical twins in a twin pair. This is where the second almost complimentary theory comes into play.
That only one twin is has ASD in some identical twin pairs endorses the theory that environmental influences may contribute either autonomously or in collaboration with autism risk genes. Because autism is a developmental disorder that has an influence on brain development early on, it suggests that prenatal and perinatal environmental influences may play a critical role and be of particular importance to our understanding of autism. Another explanation along the same lines of environmental influences as to why identical twins do not always both have autism is that monozygotic twins may not be one hundred percent genetically similar. In early fetal development monozygotic twins undergo more than three hundred genetic mutations on average.(Brogaard, 2012) Chemical elements can trigger or subdue gene expression, which means that the identical subset of genetic material can lead to the creation of dissimilar proteins. This means the twins are not completely genetically the same. Genetics coupled with environmental factors has a lot of research to back it up and is the most people in the medical community view autisms cause. There is, however, another possibility to consider.
Antibiotics and gut flora, two things that probably don’t spontaneously pop into most people’s minds when they think of causes of autism. Until the turn of this century the role antibiotic might have in wiping out a young child’s natural gut flora would never have been associated with autism. The idea has over the last thirteen years been gaining traction in the medical and scientific community. Many infants get ear infections or other infections for which general antimicrobials are prescribed. These antimicrobials are usually given orally so they are introduced into the stomach and gut. Once in the gut they can kill most bacteria that is present. This bacteria in a state of balance is not only healthy but it is necessary for the proper function of a digestive system. There is one bacterium that dwells in the gut that is not killed by antimicrobials and that is “C. histolyticum” ( Parracho, Bingham, Gibson & McCartney, 2005) a potent toxin producer. When this bacterium does not have to fight with other bacteria for nutrition it grows in the gut very rapidly. C. histolyticum is a potent toxin producer. These toxins when present in abundance make their way to the brain were they can cause major damage. Some scientists believe one of the side effects of this damage is autism.
Today’s theories seem logical and based in knowledge, so it may be tempting to say we are close to finding what really is to blame for autism.
I can’t help but think people in nineteen forty thought the same thing about the “frigid mother” theory. I hope we are close to finding the cause for autism. Then hopefully we can start finding a cure or at least be able to prevent new cases of it. Until then we will all fallow and speculate, but before we blame something or someone as the cause of autism understand the history of this problem and all the misguided blame that was thrown. If we do not know the history of the problem we will be condemned to repeat
it.
References
Baio, J. (2008). Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report: Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network. CDC. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6103a1.htm
Boyse, K. (2008). Autism, Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD.) Retrieved from http://www.med.umich.edu/yourchild/topics/autism .htm
Brogaard, B.( 2012). Identical Twins Are Not Genetically Identical. Psychology Today. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-superhuman-mind/201211/identical-twins-are-not-genetically-identical
Digitale, E. (2011). Non-genetic factors play surprisingly large role in determining autism, says study by group. Retrieved from http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2011/july/autism.html
Gillberg C, Ehlers S, Schaumann H, Jakobsson G, Dahlgren SO, Lindblom R, Bågenholm A, Tjuus T, Blidner E. (1990) Autism under age 3 years: a clinical study of 28 cases referred for autistic symptoms in infancy. Journal of Child Psychiatry 31(6):921-34 Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2246342
Miller, N.( 2001). Autism: A Medical Mystery? Retrieved from http://educate-yourself.org/vcd/vcdautismamystery.shtml
Parracho, H. Bingham, M. Gibson, G. McCartney, A. (2005). Differences between the gut microflora of children with autistic spectrum disorders and that of healthy childre. Journal of Medical Microbiology 54(10) 987-991. Retrieved from http://jmm.sgm journals.org/content/54/10/987.long
Rimland, B. (1981) Infantile autism: the syndrome and its implications for a neural theory of behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1964. 282 p.
Stewart, K. (2007). Autism Spectrum Disorders. Retrieved from http://www.genetics.edu.au /Genetic-conditions- support-groups /FS43KBS.pdf
of this disorder
With organizations such as Autism Speaks, the Autism Society of America, and Autism One, raising the awareness of the American people, and with the rising statistical chance of a parent’s child being born with autism it is crucially important that the cause or causes of autism be discovered. Many different causes have been theorized over the decades without any conclusive answers. In order to understand the main three currently possible causes of autism it is important to understand what autism is and a little about its history. A history that is sadly rifled with attempted misplacement of blame instead of an attitude of trying to discern the true cause(s) of autism. Before I delve into the causative history of autism it is important that you understand what is currently known about autism.
Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are, according to the CDC, “is a collection of developmental disabilities characterized by impairments in social interaction and communication and by restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior” (Baio, 2012.). Indicators that a person has an ASD are characteristically obvious before the age of 3 years(Gillberg, et al. 1990). Autistic disorder, sometimes called autism or classical ASD, is the most extreme form of ASD, while other conditions along the spectrum contain a milder form. These forms include “Asperger syndrome, and childhood disintegrative disorder and pervasive developmental disorder”(Boyse, 2008) .Although ASD fluctuates considerably in character and harshness, it is present in all cultural and socioeconomic conglomerates and touches every age group. Researchers approximate that one out of eighty eight children age eight will have an ASD. Males are more than “four times likely to have an ASD than females” (Stewert, K. 2007). The multifaceted nature of these different disorders, combined with an absence of biologic markers for diagnosis and deviations in clinical classifications over the course of time, generates a multitude of obstacles in monitoring the pervasiveness of ASDs. Without any established cause or causes of ASDs, it is impossible to conjecture how to help people and families already struggling with Autism.
There have been many different theories on the causative agent or agents of Autism, ever since its discovery by child psychiatrist Leo Kanner in 1943.
In the nineteen forties, Autism in a child was thought to have stemmed from the poor parenting skills of the mother. It was assumed that the mother did not provide an emotionally stable or secure environment for the child. This instability led to the afflicted child’s malady of Autism. These mothers were given the name of “refrigerator mothers”. This theory was substantiated when Kanner published several articles that gave credibility to the idea that a cold and neglectful mother was the cause of autism. At this time if you r child was diagnosed with autism you the mother would be immediately blamed. You would be viewed as a unfeeling, frigid and harsh woman that had brought this “hardship” upon herself. As a mother it wasn’t enough that you had to accept that your child had a mental disorder you also had to live with the fact that is was your fault and everyone knew it. Blaming the mother would be a pattern that would continue for another …show more content…
decade.
Rimland a psychologist and father of an autistic child, came to believe that the "refrigerator mother" theory was established on mere incidental and subjective substantiation. In 1964 Rimland’s book Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implications for a Neural Theory of Behavior was published. In this book Rimland probed the theory that autism was the consequence of an unloving relationship between a parent and their child. He offered the first concrete argument that autism is a biological ailment. (Rimland, 1981.) His idea that autism stemmed from a biological cause would be studied in much greater detail twenty years later. Until then several other causes of autism where proposed.
In the nineteen fifties it was discovered that in the mid niteen fories “ninety percent” (Miller, N. 2001)of children with autism came from parents with high socioeconomic status. Autism was thought at this time to be form of mental retardation, and retardation was thought to stem from mentally unfavorable parents, researchers were puzzled by the high incidences of autistic children coming from well-educated high earning families.
One interesting theory about autism surfaced in the early ninteen sixtys by looking back at the fledgling stage of autism understanding in the forties. Later researchers, with the value of hindsight, speculated that there might be a connection between autism and the pertussis vaccine that was first being administered in the late nineteen thirties. This vaccine was very expensive and was only administered to children of wealthy parents who could afford it. This fact would seem to correlate with the earlier observed statistic that “ninety percent” (Miller, 2001) of children who were diagnosed with autism were from wealthy families. This seemed in the 1960s to be a viable explanation despite the evidence being very flimsy and circumstantial.
However, by the late 1960s parents all over the country, within every scholastic and earning bracket, were pursuing help for their autistic children. Socioeconomic inequalities started to vanish during this period. Today, autism is evenly distributed among all social classes and ethnic groups. Once again this perplexed the researchers. Many of these researchers simply decided that prior studies were faulty. Others who would not give up on the previously maintained belief that vaccines were the cause proffered up this explanation; free vaccinations at public health clinics, which would later make vaccines widely available to children of all social and economic backgrounds, didn 't yet exist in the 1940s and 1950s. Despite this explanation the consensus in the medical community does not lay the cause of autism at early vaccination’s doors.
Today there are three main theories as to what causes autism and related ASDs. Since these theories have not been disproved and have a chance of being correct, I will extrapolate upon them in slightly greater detail than the ones before. One of them is the theory that autism is a caused by genetics. Researchers agree that the best way to study genetics effect on autism is to study identical twins. Identical twins or monozygotic twins share virtually the same genetic makeup making them ideal candidates to study any links between genetic. Previous twin studies have revealed that when one identical twin had an ASD, “the opposite twin had a greater chance of having an ASD than not”(Digitale, 2011). Identical twins share effectively 100 percent of their genes, this helps substantiate the role of genetics in autism. Something that causes concern for experts in this field that consider genetics to be the cause of autism is that not 100 percent of ASD cases affect both identical twins in a twin pair. This is where the second almost complimentary theory comes into play.
That only one twin is has ASD in some identical twin pairs endorses the theory that environmental influences may contribute either autonomously or in collaboration with autism risk genes. Because autism is a developmental disorder that has an influence on brain development early on, it suggests that prenatal and perinatal environmental influences may play a critical role and be of particular importance to our understanding of autism. Another explanation along the same lines of environmental influences as to why identical twins do not always both have autism is that monozygotic twins may not be one hundred percent genetically similar. In early fetal development monozygotic twins undergo more than three hundred genetic mutations on average.(Brogaard, 2012) Chemical elements can trigger or subdue gene expression, which means that the identical subset of genetic material can lead to the creation of dissimilar proteins. This means the twins are not completely genetically the same. Genetics coupled with environmental factors has a lot of research to back it up and is the most people in the medical community view autisms cause. There is, however, another possibility to consider.
Antibiotics and gut flora, two things that probably don’t spontaneously pop into most people’s minds when they think of causes of autism. Until the turn of this century the role antibiotic might have in wiping out a young child’s natural gut flora would never have been associated with autism. The idea has over the last thirteen years been gaining traction in the medical and scientific community. Many infants get ear infections or other infections for which general antimicrobials are prescribed. These antimicrobials are usually given orally so they are introduced into the stomach and gut. Once in the gut they can kill most bacteria that is present. This bacteria in a state of balance is not only healthy but it is necessary for the proper function of a digestive system. There is one bacterium that dwells in the gut that is not killed by antimicrobials and that is “C. histolyticum” ( Parracho, Bingham, Gibson & McCartney, 2005) a potent toxin producer. When this bacterium does not have to fight with other bacteria for nutrition it grows in the gut very rapidly. C. histolyticum is a potent toxin producer. These toxins when present in abundance make their way to the brain were they can cause major damage. Some scientists believe one of the side effects of this damage is autism.
Today’s theories seem logical and based in knowledge, so it may be tempting to say we are close to finding what really is to blame for autism.
I can’t help but think people in nineteen forty thought the same thing about the “frigid mother” theory. I hope we are close to finding the cause for autism. Then hopefully we can start finding a cure or at least be able to prevent new cases of it. Until then we will all fallow and speculate, but before we blame something or someone as the cause of autism understand the history of this problem and all the misguided blame that was thrown. If we do not know the history of the problem we will be condemned to repeat
it.
References
Baio, J. (2008). Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report: Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network. CDC. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6103a1.htm
Boyse, K. (2008). Autism, Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD.) Retrieved from http://www.med.umich.edu/yourchild/topics/autism .htm
Brogaard, B.( 2012). Identical Twins Are Not Genetically Identical. Psychology Today. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-superhuman-mind/201211/identical-twins-are-not-genetically-identical
Digitale, E. (2011). Non-genetic factors play surprisingly large role in determining autism, says study by group. Retrieved from http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2011/july/autism.html
Gillberg C, Ehlers S, Schaumann H, Jakobsson G, Dahlgren SO, Lindblom R, Bågenholm A, Tjuus T, Blidner E. (1990) Autism under age 3 years: a clinical study of 28 cases referred for autistic symptoms in infancy. Journal of Child Psychiatry 31(6):921-34 Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2246342
Miller, N.( 2001). Autism: A Medical Mystery? Retrieved from http://educate-yourself.org/vcd/vcdautismamystery.shtml
Parracho, H. Bingham, M. Gibson, G. McCartney, A. (2005). Differences between the gut microflora of children with autistic spectrum disorders and that of healthy childre. Journal of Medical Microbiology 54(10) 987-991. Retrieved from http://jmm.sgm journals.org/content/54/10/987.long
Rimland, B. (1981) Infantile autism: the syndrome and its implications for a neural theory of behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1964. 282 p.
Stewart, K. (2007). Autism Spectrum Disorders. Retrieved from http://www.genetics.edu.au /Genetic-conditions- support-groups /FS43KBS.pdf