The article discusses the early history of how autism was “discovered.” Many believed that people who portrayed signs of what is known today as autism, were idiots. Idiots was a medical term that meant someone was intellectually inferior and incapable of learning. Nonetheless, a doctor observed these socially incompetent people and believed that they were not dumb at all because they were able to perform tasks that showed intellectual ability, such as counting and multiplying. Following this realization, other doctors, including Howe, opened education facilities for people with autism.

This article opened up with Billy, a man from a New England town in the late 1800’s, undergoing a check up from a doctor recording his characteristics and idiosyncrasies with relation to his “idiocy”. The fact that Billy, and many others before the 1920’s exhibited remarkable mental abilities despite their awkward mannerisms with social interactions and comprehension of certain elements in their environments serves as a basis for the article to argue that autism rates might not necessarily be on the rise, rather, its recognition and scope by which it is diagnosed has merely increased.

People who have mental disabilities should never be looked down upon.  These people were looked down upon in early times for having different physical features and lacked some types of communication skills.  However, what some skills these people lacked, they had an advantage at other skills such as memorization of musical tunes.  Some of these people were greatly recognized for their skills and made the way the public bundled them to the term “idiots” highly offensive.

This article focused on autism, and the path to it being named a condition. Certain individuals who were observed to have a different style of thinking were labeled “idiots”, although with a different connotation that it has today. Over time, observations led to the naming of the condition, autism. People with autism may not seem intelligent because of the way they interact with others, but may be brilliant in mathematics. It is quite interesting to see the journey of the diagnosis of autism.

The article we read about detailed the history of autism and how it has become more recognized overtime. The author points out a figure in history named Howe, who was a social activist. He first set about helping the blind learn. After success in this realm, he went on an taught “idiots.” Although Howe was not comfortable using the term idiot because many of the individuals he studied showed talent in a specified field. For example: in one case, a man had the talent of perfect pitch. Howe went on to create a school for “idiots.” These “idiots” many times would be labeled as autistic in present day.

The previous night’s reading consisted of stories about the development of autism awareness in America through both stories of individual cases and through a more general lens describing the American society’s changing views. We began reading an anecdote on an early researcher who investigated mental illness in a time when autistic individuals were called “idiots” and were denied many basic human rights. The article described how a scientist opened a famous school to educate the blind and those with mental illness, as he believed in the idea that all people are teachable.

This article talked about the history of autism and how it has actually been around for way longer than the term has even been in use. Back then, people with intellectual disabilities or people who acted differently than the norm were referred to as “idiots”. The term had a different connotation back then than it did now so it wasn’t meant to be super demeaning but a way to describe such people. A doctor realized that there was more to these people so he decided to travel and examine anyone called an “idiot” and measure different things about them. A certain person named Billy was looked at, and the doctor noticed that he had profound musical talents despite his social unawareness and intellectual stuntedness. This was just one example of how autism was around a long time ago (and was beginning to be recognized) and that it is more than just intellectual disability.

The article talked about Billy who suffered with autism. He lived in a time when there was no medical terminology for the disease but people referred to autistic individuals as “idiots”. I think an interesting point to be made here is how far society has come in medical naming from slang.

Another autistic individual that was mentioned in the article was The Wild Boy of Aveyron who was found in the French forest who was a medical anomaly in the late 18th century.

Autism was around before there was even a term for the disability.

The article first talks about the history of the discovery of autism. Originally they believed autism was not discovered until the mid 1900’s, however, sources show it may have been diagnosed earlier. After a background of the discovery of and diagnosis of autism, the article goes on to focus on a specific man who first started in teaching the blind how to read and write.  He later on did more work to benefit the autistic. I found it interesting that doctors think that autism could have been caused by some traumatic event earlier on in human history.

The article contends that autism is probably not a recent development among our society, but its characteristics can be traced back to the 1800s during the time that Howe was implementing schools for the physically and mentally disabled.  He received a grant that allowed him to assemble information about these people who acted socially abnormally.  The author of the paper shows us that these documented characteristics are very similar to those found in autistic people today.  The article concludes with the idea that answers and information about autism could possibly be found in the past.