NeuroTribes
A history of Autism, drawn as a timeline from Silberman’s book
🚧 Under construction — this page is in the right place, but it is still being expanded and cited. Treat it as a sketch, not a source.
Compiled from Silberman’s NeuroTribes (2015) and Verywell Health. A work in progress.
The Discovery Era
- 1911 — Bleuler coins the term “Autism,” referring to the withdrawn, “obsessive” behaviors of children exhibiting a form of childhood schizophrenia.
- 1926 — Grunya Sukhareva, a child psychiatrist in Kyiv, writes about six children with autistic traits in Monatsschrift für Psychiatrie und Neurologie.
- 1931 — Hans Asperger joins the children's clinic in Austria.
- 1938 — Louise Despert, a psychologist in New York, details 29 cases of childhood schizophrenia, some resembling today's classification of Autism.
- 1943 — Kanner publishes his paper.
- 1944 — Asperger publishes his paper (in German).
The Publishing Era
- 1952 — DSM-I released.
- 1964 — Rimland publishes; Lovaas publishes.
The DSM Era
- 1970 — Lorna Wing popularizes the spectrum concept.
- 1980 — DSM-III includes infantile Autism as a category.
- 1988 — the movie Rain Man is released.
- 1990 — IDEA includes Autism as a disability category.
- 1994 — DSM-IV uses spectrum language.
- 1996 — Temple Grandin publishes her autobiography.
Silberman, S. (2015). NeuroTribes: The legacy of autism and the future of neurodiversity. Avery.