Page 1 of 1 [ 6 posts ] 

Spyoon
Raven
Raven

User avatar

Joined: 3 Sep 2016
Age: 29
Gender: Female
Posts: 106

08 May 2018, 3:39 pm

They should finally get credit for their pioneering observations
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5696677/

Quote:
in 1926, Grunya Efimovna Sukhareva (surname sometimes transliterated as “Ssucharewa” from Cyrillic), who was then active in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, had described six boys presenting with a clinical picture that, as for the clinical features and evolution, is fully compatible, according to the modern criteria, with ASD and that today we would call “high functioning.” The description of these cases is of an amazing precision and modernity: just think of the fact, for example, that Grunya Efimovna Sukhareva emphasized the importance of the presence of sensory abnormalities, which only recently regained their proper weight in the description of ASD in the DSM-5.[5] Despite all these, the work of Sukhareva remains even today a kind of curiosity and it is only sporadically cited in literature.[6]


https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/ful ... jhbs.21884
Quote:
In my analysis of the Dutch origins of autism the central part is played by Ida Frye (1909–2003) in her work as head of the children's home of the Paedological Institute in Nijmegen in the late 1930s. My intention, however, is not to claim some kind of “primacy” for Frye.5 Rather, the aim is to trace the positions and contributions of various players in the pioneering work in autism in the Netherlands, using Hacking's (2004, p. 17) notion of “meta‐epistemology.”

Quote:
The aim of this paper is to add a new example of pioneering work in autism in order to refocus the debate on the historiography of the phenomenon of “autism.” The most important purpose of the Dutch example is to show that the origins of autism can better be understood in terms of “contingency” rather than “discovery.” Autism cannot be considered a straightforward reference to a “natural essence” or a “natural kind” (Hacking, 1995, 2006), nor can it be imagined as “an objective entity independent of its embodiment in particular individuals” (Verhoeff, 2012, p. 411). Instead, understanding “autism” implies insight into the ways the phenomenon resulted from social and scientific practices that were aimed at diagnosing and treating children who came to be considered “special” (Eyal, Hart, Onculer, Oren, & Rossi, 2010; Nadeson, 2005; Verhoeff, 2015).


_________________
not diagnosed
sorry for butchering the english language and obsessively re-editing my posts.


B19
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 11 Jan 2013
Gender: Female
Posts: 9,993
Location: New Zealand

08 May 2018, 4:22 pm

I doubt that the full story has yet been told in all its fullness as yet, and the recent additions to the history are helpful.



Spyoon
Raven
Raven

User avatar

Joined: 3 Sep 2016
Age: 29
Gender: Female
Posts: 106

08 May 2018, 4:44 pm

B19 wrote:
I doubt that the full story has yet been told in all its fullness as yet, and the recent additions to the history are helpful.

Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if even earlier descriptions of the autistic spectrum exist.

This comment of yours highlights another crucial part to the story
B19 wrote:
Another woman "written out" of the history, her observations predating Kanner's, in the USA, and he was aware of her work:

In a recent article, Fellowes (2015) asserts that Kanner built on ideas previously outlined by Louise
Despert, a child psychiatrist living in New York. Despert had already published a 1938 clinical account classifying 23 children as childhood schizophrenic. (This term was used for autism at that time).
In a letter written by Despert in 1943, just after Kanner’s publication, she praised Kanner’s paper but objected to his claim to have discovered something new since she had already described something like autism.

Not only did Kanner not mention it, none of the male "autism experts" in subsequent decades did either.

Could you please suggest an introductory link to her/her work?


_________________
not diagnosed
sorry for butchering the english language and obsessively re-editing my posts.


B19
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 11 Jan 2013
Gender: Female
Posts: 9,993
Location: New Zealand

08 May 2018, 4:49 pm

She was noted in the marvellous history of AS, the book Neurotribes by Steve Silberman. He may have a reference in the notes at the end. I have lent my own copy out at the moment. He possibly has a website where you could ask him directly for the sources.



Spyoon
Raven
Raven

User avatar

Joined: 3 Sep 2016
Age: 29
Gender: Female
Posts: 106

08 May 2018, 4:56 pm

That will do then
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ry_of_1938

Quote:
Despert’s 1938 paper provides a clinical and classificatory account of 23 children
she diagnosed as childhood schizophrenic. 1930s notions of childhood schizophrenia covered
children with communication problems, emotional problems, abnormal thinking but, unlike
adult schizophrenics, most did not hallucinate. In 1949 Kanner writes that autism “is so
intimately related to the basic nature of childhood schizophrenia as to be indistinguishable
from it, especially from the cases with insidious onset discussed by Ssucharewa,
Grebelskay-Albatz, and Despert” (Kanner 1949, p.419), referencing Despert's 1938 paper.

Did Kanner Actually Describe the First... (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ry_of_1938 [accessed May 09 2018].


_________________
not diagnosed
sorry for butchering the english language and obsessively re-editing my posts.


ASPartOfMe
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Aug 2013
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,245
Location: Long Island, New York

27 Nov 2022, 10:15 pm

From the archives: Rare photos of Grunya Sukhareva

Quote:
Until two years ago, the photographs in this gallery lay buried in the archives of a Moscow clinic named after Grunya Efimovna Sukhareva, the child psychiatrist who described autism two decades before its well-known ‘founding fathers,’ Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger, did. Few, if any, of the images have been published outside of Russia.

Staff at the clinic — the Scientific and Practical Center for Mental Health of Children and Adolescents named after G. Sukhareva — unearthed the images in preparation for the clinic’s 125th anniversary, says Katerina Melnikova, head of development there. The photos help to portray a more complete picture of Sukhareva as a clinician and teacher, as did a 2019 article by Anna Basova, the clinic’s deputy director of science. That article included new observations from Eleanora Solomonovna Mandrusova, a clinical psychologist who worked directly with Sukhareva in the 1960s.

“Grunya Efimovna was not only a brilliant doctor, a subtle diagnostician, but also an outstanding teacher,” Mandrusova recalled. “She, passing on her vast experience, sought to teach young doctors clinical thinking, the ability to analyze, compare and compare. Her clinical reviews were a small spectacle. They were always attended by many interns, residents, young specialists. After listening to the speaker (usually the attending physician of the patient), she asked the opinion of everyone present. And then, after examining and talking with the patient himself, in a very mild manner, praising everyone for individual observations, she described with persuasiveness and simplicity a completely different clinical picture, clearly motivating her


_________________
Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity

“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman