Author: kfwilliams
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I Dwell in Possibility – 6 Potential Faces of ASD
Retrospective diagnosis is the act of identifying an illness after the death of a person using modern knowledge, methods and disease classifications. Historians and psychiatrists have studied the behavior of the following individuals, using their biographical information, and determined them to be on the spectrum. Albert Einstein (Scientist & Mathematician) Einstein didn’t speak until the…
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The Evolution of Autism – Part V: The Woman Behind the ‘Spectrum’
In 1956, psychiatrist Lorna Wing gave birth to her daughter Susie. In the following years, Wing and her husband, psychiatrist John Wing, became increasingly worried as Susie showed a ‘lack of communication and social interaction, lack of pretend play and repetitive behavior.’ Neither parent, despite their medical training, could recognize what was occurring with their…
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The Evolution of Autism – Part IV: Treatment
While Bruno Bettleheim was promoting his use of the ‘refrigerator mother’ theory, Dr. Ivar Lovaas was introducing behavior modification to institutions for adults engaging in severe forms of self-injury. In the mid-1960s, he changed demographics and attempted to help children avoid the path of institutionalization by constructing an intervention with the purpose of teaching language to…
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