The history of Autism is a discourse (Waltz 2013), a journey through a disputed landscape, whose territories are alternatively staked by Politics, Education, Society, and Culture. It is diachronic in nature, as the knowledge of the present is built upon the past, but a diachronic that has progressed differently in different states, at different rates as each impact upon each other. Essentially its origins are lost in myth (Frith 1992) but its presence has always been felt in one way or another, even before the concept of autism was framed in the Western psychiatric narrative.
It is important for the continued understanding of the position that autism occupies as a “phenomenon” in England to restore the emphasis of the narrative to the cultural landscape as this is the day-to-day experience of people living and working with this contested construct and category of humanity. Although the discourse of autism has been framed by professionals and academics, it is in reality only one side of...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References and Reading
APA. (1980). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders 3rd edition. (Various ed.). Washington DC: American Psychiatric Association.
Arnold, L. (2007). Provisional front page for autreach. Retrieved from Autreach: http://www.autreach.eu.
Arnold, L. (2012). Editorial. Autonomy, The Critical Journal of Interdisciplinary Autism Studies, 1(1). Retrieved from http://www.larry-arnold.net/Autonomy/index.php/autonomy/article/view/ED1/html.
Baron-Cohen, S. (2002). The extreme male brain theory of autism. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6(6), 248–254.
Baron-Cohen, S., Frith, U., & Leslie, A. (1985). Does the autistic child have a “theory of mind”? Cognition, 21, 37–46.
Finkelstein, V. (1975). To deny or not to deny disability – What is disability? Magic Carpet, 27(1), 31–38.
Flaherty, D. K. (2011). The vaccine-autism connection: A public health crisis caused by unethical medical practices and fraudulent science. Annals of Pharmacology, 45(10), 1302–1304.
Frith, U. (1992). Autism, explaining the enigma. Oxford: Blackwell.
Happé, F. (1999). Understanding assets and deficits in autism – Why success is more interesting than failure. The Psychologist, 12(11), 540.
Mc Donagh, P. (2008). A cultural history of idiocy. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Murray, S. (2008). Representing autism. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Murray, D., & Benstock, J. (Directors). (2007). Something About Us [Motion Picture].
Murray, D., Lesser, M., & Lawson, W. (2005). Attention, monotropism and the diagnostic criteria for autism. Autism, 9(2), 139–156.
Oliver, M. (1990). The individual and social models of disability paper presented at joint workshop of the Living Options Group and the Research Unit of the Royal College of Physicians.On People with established locomotor disabilities in hospitals July 1990. Retrieved 10 May 2010, from http://www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies/archiveuk/Oliver/in%20soc%20dis.pdf.
Rimland, B. (1964). Infantile autism: The syndrome and its implications for a neural theory of behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Said, E. (1977). Orientalism. London: Penguin.
Sinclair, J. (2005). Autism network international: The development of a community and it’s culture. Retrieved 16 June 2010, from Autreat.com: http://www.autreat.com/History_of_ANI.html.
Waltz, M. (2013). Autism a social and medical history. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Wing, L., & Gould, J. (1979). Severe impairments of social interaction and associated abnormalities in children: Epidemiology and classification. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 9(1), 11–29.
Yergau, M. (2013). Clinically significant disturbance: On theorists who theorize theory of mind. Disability Studies Quarterly, 33(4).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Science+Business Media LLC
About this entry
Cite this entry
Arnold, L., Milton, D., Beardon, L., Chown, N. (2018). England and Autism. In: Volkmar, F. (eds) Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6435-8_102025-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6435-8_102025-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-6435-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-6435-8
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences