The History of Autism Spectrum Disorder
Purpose:
The historical and theoretical foundations of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have greatly influenced the understanding of ASD. Understanding how ASD was diagnosed and viewed throughout key historical events is important when considering how to assist children with ASD today.
Directions:
For this assignment, you will write an informative essay to analyze five historical and theoretical events.
The five historical and theoretical events are:
Pioneer views of ASD prior to 1900s
Clinicians and researchers associated autism spectrum disorder with “refrigerator mothers” and childhood schizophrenia
The standardization of diagnostic criteria for ASD, including a discussion of Ivar Lovaas’ intensive behavior therapy results
The study published by Andrew Wakefield in 1998 suggesting that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine causes autism
Revision of the DSM-5
Your informative essay should include the following:
Title page in current APA style
Provide information on each historical event
Explain how each event was important to the study of ASD
Explain how perceptions of ASD have changed over time
Explain how this knowledge will help support children with ASD
Conclusion summarizing the information
Reference page in current APA style
Assignment Guidelines
Your essay should be 2–3 pages in length, with a separate title and reference page. Please include at least three different references in your responses and properly cite all sources using current APA formatting and citation style. Your full references should be listed alphabetically on the reference page.
History of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
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History of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
Pioneer views of ASD prior to the 1900s
Before the 1990s, ASD was confused and combined with other psychological situations. Some researchers compared autism to schizophrenia, while others, like Asperger and Kenner, exposed the term to describe children with social and emotional problems (Hogge, 2022). The 1900s revealed cognitive deficits in perception, motility, relations, speech, and language caused autism. The findings made society accept and review the healing approach for treating autistic children. Currently, individuals with ASD are educated, and most have successful careers. The procedures have helped stakeholders structure education that caters to the instructional needs of people with ASD (Gyawali & Patra, 2019). In brief, procedures that help ASD individuals still refer to and improve on the research done in the 1900s.
Clinicians and researchers associated ASD with “refrigerator mothers” and childhood schizophrenia
Researchers called Kenner and Bruno established a theory called refrigerator mothers. The scholars blamed ASD on mothers who failed to provide maternal ties to children (Hogge, 2022). Nevertheless, Rimland’s research refuted the ‘refrigerator mothers” theory. As a result, scientists stopped focusing on parenting as a cause of autism. Today, it is commonly recognized that ASD comes from a mixture of environmental and genetic aspects (Carmona-Serrano et al., 2021). However, parents find it difficult when their children have been diagnosed with ASD. Mothers still blame themselves despite knowing childrearing has nothing to do with ASD. Generally, parents still play important roles in supporting and helping kids with ASD.
The standardization of diagnostic criteria for ASD, including a discussion of Ivar Lovaas’ intensive behavior therapy results
Ivar Lovaas sought to find therapeutic handlings that could change the behaviors of ASD children and address the cause of the actions. The scientist later developed a system based on language, imitation, motivation, social collaboration, parent participation, success, positive connections, and requesting (Gyawali & Patra, 2019). Moreover, children who used Ivar’s model had better and improved behaviors that lasted their lifetime, unlike youngsters with no intervention...