History of Attribution of Cause
Autism has long been considered a classification of a mental disorder. Early individuals with moderate to severe delays in language and social skills would have been placed in institutions to be “treated” by the medical establishment of the time. Kanner, a psychiatrist, first wrote about “infantile autism” and the associated symptoms in his paper in 1943. It is likely that individuals with autism who were high functioning were considered odd, loners who were not classified as needing intervention.