THREE:This chapter taught me that Autism Spectrum Disorder is one of the most misunderstoodand dangerous disabilities in special education. Autism affects an estimated 3.5 million people inthe United States today. In 1943, a psychiatrist named Leo Kanner established the signs thatcharacterized autism. She used the term "autistic," which refers to a person who cannot cope withreality. Before Kanner's studies, people with autism spectrum disorder were given various titles,such as childhood schizophrenia, mental retardation, and so on, to explain their condition, whichwas somewhat shocking. Kanner also emphasized the kids' exceptional rote recall, speech andlanguage delays, and an excessively obsessive desire to keep everything the same. As I read thischapter, something that stood out to me was how, for many years, children with autism werereferred to as having childhood schizophrenia, or childhood-onset pervasive developmental
