This is one of the early cases Leo Kanner diagnosed on his eleven cases. I should think the statistics for the prevalance of autism was down in those pioneer times largely due to a lack of clinicians like Kanner. It would not surprise me if the old Kanners criteria for autism was applied to the general population these days the figure would also be around 1 in 150 or maybe less to lable a large proportion of gifted children with ASD.
Quote:
Case 8
Alfred was brought by his mother in November, 1935 at 3 ½ years of age with this complaint:
“He has gradually shown a marked tendency towards developing one special interest which will completely dominate his day’s activities. He talks of little else while his interests exist, he frets when he is not able to indulge in it (by seeing it, coming in contact with it, drawing pictures of it), and it is difficult to get his attention because of his preoccupation …. There has been the problem of over attachment to the world of objects and failure to develop the usual amount of social awareness”
Alfred, upon entering the office, paid no attention to the examiner. He immediately spotted a train in the toy cabinet, took it out, and connected and disconnected the cars in a slow monotonous manner. He kept saying many times, More train – more train – more train. He repeatedly “counted” the cars windows – “One, two windows – one two windows – four window – eight windows.” He could not in any way be distracted from the trains. A Binet test was attempted in the room in which there were no trains. It was possible with much difficultly to pierce from time to time through his pre-occupations. He finally complied in most instances in a manner that clearly indicated that he wanted to get through with the particular intrusion.; this was repeated with each individual item of the task. In the end he achieved an I,Q. of 140
Leo Kanner
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09 Dec 2007, 2:23 pm
