Language and Autism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Language and Autism - Essay Example In 1908, Eugen Bleuler a Swiss psychiatrist coined the word "autism" in schizophrenic patients who screened themselves off and were self-absorbed. Leo Kanner, while at Johns Hopkins, was first to describe autism in 1943 (Yazbak, 2003, 103-107). Leo Kanner described children with the following common traits: impairments in social interaction anguish for changes, good memory, belated echolalia, over sensitivity to certain stimuli (especially sound), food problems, limitations in spontaneous activity, good intellectual potential, often coming from talented families. He called the children autistic (Certec, 2004). A German scientist in 1944, Dr. Hans Asperger, described a milder form of the disorder that is now known as Asperger Syndrome. Asperger Syndrome (AS) (Asperger, 1944) is a subgroup on the autistic spectrum. People with AS share many of the same features as are seen in autism, but with no history of language delay and where IQ is in the average range or above (Baron-Cohen, 2004, 73-78). For a very long time, autism and psychosis continued to be confused and to this day parents are accused of causing the serious disabilities their autistic children have. For many years, researchers searched for the underlying cause of contact and language disorders, but they realized that the disability was more complex (Certec, 2004). Just et al. (2004, 1811–1821) suggest neural basis of disordered language in autism entails a lower degree of information integration and synchronization across the large-scale cortical network for language processing.