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ASPartOfMe
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11 May 2014, 3:25 am

I was recently given a gift of Time Magazine (An American general newsweekly) subscription. When you get a subscription you get online access to every issue going back to the first one in 1923. So I searched for "Autism" and "Autistic".

There will be some things to laugh at but a bunch of triggering words also

First article with Autism appeared in the April 28, 1946 edition of the magazine and was entitled
"Medicine: Frosted Children"
The article was about a speech Dr. Kanner gave to the American Ortho-psychiatric Association in Manhattan . The article states he used to defend parents against charges everything was their fault but he could not do that with autistic children. This statement he made to them should revise history a bit about the origin of the "refrigerator mother" theory.
''The parents wanted to do the right thing by them; but their idea of the right thing was "the mechanized service of the kind which is rendered by an over-conscientious gasoline station attendant." The children, says Dr. Kanner, were "kept neatly in a refrigerator which didn't defrost." ". The article goes on to describe Kanner's patients as "pathetic"
http://content.time.com/time/subscriber ... 84,00.html

The magazine did another article in 1960 about him describing Kanner as the inventor of child psychiatry
http://content.time.com/time/subscriber ... 28,00.html

Celebrity parents of Autistic children existed in 1965!! !!.
"Sunday, February 7
DIRECTIONS '65 (ABC, 1-1:30 p.m.). The case of an eight-year-old child suffering from autism is told by his brothers and sisters and his father, TV Playwright Robert Crean.?
http://content.time.com/time/subscriber ... 06,00.html

For the August 1, 1969 edition the magazine ran an article about Autism
?Mental Illness: The Trance Children?
The article begins ?The most tragic, and in some ways most mysterious, form of mental illness in children is infantile autism. Autistic children live in a lonely and unbreakable trance?.
But the article does take a more positive turn. They describe the ?refrigerator mother? theory as started by Kanner and accepted by Bettelheim but noted there are professionals and parents rejecting this theory ?The specialists who belong to the National Society?and the parents who founded the organization 3 years ago ?strongly disagree. They point out that the symptoms of autism usually develop in a baby's first weeks, seemingly well before strong parental influence is possible. Moreover, studies indicate that the other offspring of parents with an autistic child are almost invariably normal?
http://content.time.com/time/subscriber ... -1,00.html

In 1969 autistic characters began to be portrayed in movies and on TV.
Elvis made women feel good, but curing an Autistic girl in one minute with ?rage therapy?? That was what was portrayed in the movie ?Change of Habit? . Here is the scene.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8CDEOiMmPY

British child actor Marc Lestor best know as the star of Oliver! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Lester played apparent autistic characters twice that year. In the children?s film ?Run Wild, Run Free? he played the 10 year old lead character Phillip. Phillip?s condition is never mentioned in the film. And later synopsis use other names for his condition. In an otherwise positive review 36 years before Autism Speaks was conceived Time wrote ?But Philip cannot communicate either his enthusiasm or thanks: he is autistic, a puzzle and a burden to his parents for most of most of his life?
http://content.time.com/time/subscriber ... 69,00.html

I will not comment further until people have had time to see it. It is a full length film.
his.ahttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIa72h7LTTU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDlpnEQbtuA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M71l3p5Dke0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0rGUpsQFiU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InIzpOfq6U4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usdGN3esYHo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts0c1LFepoQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NToNql6V7LM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZePU64sXQe8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQjhL5yvzSg

In the NBC TV series ?Then Came Bronson (NBC)? the lead character was a motorcyclist played by Michael Parks. According to Time ?In the premiere, Parks laconically brought an autistic child to his senses in a scenic Wyoming camp for disturbed children and then varoomed off, presumably toward a less tearjerking episode?
http://content.time.com/time/subscriber ... -2,00.html

June 15 1973: President Nixon signs a proclamation for ?National Children?s Autistic Week?
Some quotes from the proclamation
First line ? ?One of the most cruel and difficult to understand of all childhood
mental disorders is the baffling condition known as childhood autism.?

?Without special education and care, nearly all are faced with a life of
confinement at home or in an institution for the mentally ill. The human
costs are equally disturbing; not only do autistic children lead wasted
lives but the lives of their parents are scarred by feelings of frustration
as they and others seek to understand the bizarre behavior of the children?
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-87 ... Pg1218.pdf

Two years later Nixon had resigned from office because of the Watergate Scandal. A book reviewer for the New York Times was claiming that Nixon himself was borderline autistic. Theodore White was a influential chronicler of the Chinese and American political scenes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_White. His book about the Watergate Scandal was entitled ?Breach of Faith: The Fall of Richard Nixon?. The reviewer for The Times wrote ?He very nearly suggests ? and I wish he had- that in the extremity of his loneliness, Richard Nixon?s behavior bordered on the autistic.?
The review as reprinted by the ?Daytona Beach Morning Journal?
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1 ... 481,673747.
Wrong Planet posters did not invent "diagnosing" public figures , it was done almost 3 decades before WP existed.

I believe the Nixon was autistic claim has merit. That is a topic for another thread.


Comment:
There were some infuriating statements made. While they did reflect the expert opinion of that era there was a lot of writer judgments made also. As bad as those old remarks made me feel what really infuriates me is that here we are in 2014 all these decades later with all the new scientific understanding but still 1. The exact same language is used 2. The exact attitude is reflected by some using more Politically correct inspiration and pity language.


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Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 12 May 2014, 11:00 am, edited 3 times in total.

kraftiekortie
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11 May 2014, 6:13 am

interesting stuff!

Thanks for the research.



LookingLost
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11 May 2014, 6:59 am

Thanks!


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ASPartOfMe
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12 May 2014, 7:45 pm

Glad you found it interesting.

I found the full movie for Change of Habit on youtube here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJsVD4xOVuQ

Between 25:00 and 26:40 Mary Tyler Moore diagnoses the girl
and explains the cause which is what we know as "Refrigerator Mother" theory.

She is "cured" by Elvis between 42:00 and 48:20. I was a bit to flippant about the "rage reduction therapy" in my earlier remarks. It was really used on Autistcs and others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Zaslow#History
"This form of therapy, including diagnosis and accompanying parenting techniques, is scientifically unvalidated and is not considered to be part of mainstream psychology or, despite its name, to be based on attachment theory, with which it is considered incompatible. It is primarily based on Robert Zaslow's rage-reduction therapy from the 1960s and '70s and on psychoanalytic theories about suppressed rage, catharsis, regression, breaking down of resistance and defence mechanisms. Zaslow, Tinbergen, Martha Welch and other early proponents used it as a treatment for autism, based on the now discredited belief that autism was the result of failures in the attachment relationship with the mother."


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ASPartOfMe
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07 Oct 2014, 1:10 am

Marcus Welby MD, was a popular USA medical drama http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Welby,_M.D. In just the second episode that aired (third if you count the pilot.. ) They aired a episode called "The Foal" n September 30, 1969 centered around an Autistic boy . Unfortunately you have to pay Amazon or ITunes $1.99 to see it.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0641953/


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07 Oct 2014, 2:02 pm

ASPartOfMe wrote:
June 15 1973: President Nixon signs a proclamation for ?National Children?s Autistic Week?
Some quotes from the proclamation
First line ? ?One of the most cruel and difficult to understand of all childhood
mental disorders is the baffling condition known as childhood autism.?

?Without special education and care, nearly all are faced with a life of
confinement at home or in an institution for the mentally ill. ?


Well at least Nixon got it right with the education statement. Heck my mom once told me that one of the best things she did was ignore the advice of friends who said that my symptoms will go away because I got the proper education that I needed as result of being diagnosed at 2.


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08 Nov 2014, 2:46 am

its really a nice staff.. appreciable representation



ASPartOfMe
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09 Mar 2015, 11:10 am

Is Early Infantile Autism and Autistic Psychopathy the same thing? discussed in 1971 journal article. The words "Kanners Syndrome" and "Aspergers Syndrome" were used.
http://neurodiversity.com/library_van_krevelen_1971.pdf

Interesting the author starts off thinking they are different disorders but by the end of the article seems to be coming around to the idea they are.


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04 Jan 2016, 5:36 pm

New York Times - "L.I. Staff Gets Through to Autistic" February 22, 1966

Quote:
They can see but with the glazed stare of a doll. They can hear but show no sign. They can make sounds but do not speak. Their wild movements are purposeless. Their illness is called Autism, a form of childhood schizophrenia.


Source The Politics of Autism: Navigating the Contested Spectrum by John J. Putney Nook book page 36


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07 Jun 2017, 10:41 pm

1968 Documentary - The Invisible Wall
Features lengthy interviews with parents and Dr. Bernard Rimland about "Early Infintile Autism"


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12 Nov 2017, 7:09 pm

Panorama - 1974 - Autism Provision

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A Panorama report from 1974 consisting of a report by Denis Tuohy about about autism and provision for autistic children and adolescents. It features the National Autistic Society's first school as well as their first residential care unit for autistic adolescents and adults - Somerset Court. It includes interviews with John Hill, Dr Lorna Wing, Wendy Landman and Sybil Elgar.



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13 Nov 2017, 11:12 am

I know, for a fact, that a public service announcement pertaining to autism was aired about 1970-1971. That's when I first learned of the term. I was a little scared of that commercial.

I was diagnosed with autism when I was about 3 years old, in 1964. I was diagnosed as having "brain damage," and placed in a "brain-injured" nursery school at age 5, in 1966.

Autism seemed to be a well-known condition to psychologists by at least the 1950s. I read many case studies pertaining to autistic children from that time, and even some from the 1940s. Invariably, these kids would reach milestones "normally," including speech---then lose the ability to speak between 18 months and 2 1/2 years of age.

No, I didn't read them during the 1940s and 1950s, of course; I read them in the 1970s.



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13 Nov 2017, 11:31 am

Interesting.

I saw the movie "Run Wild Run Free" in a theater when it came in the late Sixties. Though the condition was never mentioned in the movie by name the boy lead character is clearly autistic, with selective mutism. It predated "Rain Man" by like 20 years.



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13 Nov 2017, 11:43 am

In 1966, at age 5, I went to a "research camp" as a study subject. It was known as Camp Harrelson.

I said my first words there.

It is quite probable that they were conducting research into autism, and "minimal brain dysfunction," at that time.

It's funny: even though I didn't talk, I knew I was going to "Camp Harrelson."



Last edited by kraftiekortie on 13 Nov 2017, 1:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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13 Nov 2017, 1:52 pm

Certainly is fascinating...


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19 Nov 2017, 4:01 pm

Article from the Sunday Observer 17 July 1966
Courtesy of Larry Arnold


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