What happened to Kanner's?

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Back in the 60's and 50's and 40's. Autism was called Kanner's syndrome and now that word doesn't exist anymore because now it's just called autism. Why did the doctors get rid of that word and decided to call it autism only?

So what happened with the people who were diagnosed with Kanner's back in the days when that name was still being used? Do they still use that diagnoses or did the have to go and get rediagnosed so they have a new label or do they still have the Kanner label?

I think "Kanners" became pejorative just like "idiot savant" is nowadays. Not sure, though.

First, Kanner's Syndrome was renamed "autism". There was a mania for a time for removing people's names from various disorders.

Then new forms were discovered, and using names came back into vogue, so they became "Rett's Syndrome", "Asperger's Syndrome", et al.

Then they all got put into ASD. Now, "autism" and "Kanner's" are used interchangeably by people who are careless with terms. Psychologists tend to refer to it these days as "Kanner's autism". (That's my daughter's official diagnosis.)

Confused yet?

tmad40blue:

thats when you raid every drawer until you find it. there's got to be sometime when you're home alone. And when you find it CLAIM IT YOURS!

and if you can't find it. DEMAND IT! scream and cry until you get it. Tell them you refuse to do anything until you get to look at those papers.

Yeah, that's basically what happened, the history someone else described.

Plus, the actual meaning of "Kanner's autism" has shifted a lot, as my blog entry What does "Kanner's" actually mean, historically? gets into. I bet a lot of people just exactly like Kanner's patients, if they went in for diagnosis today, would get called Asperger's or PDD-NOS, ironically enough.

It even says so in the text of the DSM-III