Autism is a neurological disorder, that
typically appears during the first 3 years of life.
It affects functioning of the brain what causes physical, social and
language skills.
Autism interferes with the normal development of the brain in the areas of
reasoning, social interaction and communication skills.
The disorder makes it hard for autistic people to communicate with others
and relate to the outside world.
They are withdrawn and self preoccupied.
Autism knows no social, racial or ethnic boundaries.
It is four times more prevelant in boys than in girls.
Autism is the third most common developmental disability – more
common than Down´s Syndrome.
Although, the majority of public, including many professionals in the
medical, educational and vocational fields are still unaware of how autism
affects people and how to work effectively with induviduals with
autism.
Our understanding of this disorder has grown tremendously since it was
first described in 1943, but it is still incompletely understood.



Historical background


In the past autism was called „Dementia Praecox“ (= early mental
deficiency)

Induviduals with autism were excluded from the outside world and put in
madhouses.
In 1914 Eugen Bleuer (swiss psychatrist) coined the term AUTISM
(greek „autos“ = self)
30 years later Hans Asperger (Austrian psychatrist) and Leo
Kanner (German psychatrist)
took the term „autism“ up again.
Both described, independent from each other, for the first time the
syndrome.
Aspergr and Kanner observed ch...