Kanner's autism and Arnold Chiari syndrome

[Italia]

hi !
I'm not posting but I'm always reading with much interest.
It's only that I feel myself ....."out" of your world,as I'm italian and from a different culture.
You really should herlp me if you explain me what is Kanner's autism and Arnold Chiari Syndrome
;)

[LIZARD]

According to the "Medical Encyclopedia," Kanner's autism is defined as:"...a significant delay in language and usually lower-than average intelligence; Kanner's autism with IQ<80 is referred to as "low-functioning autism", while Kanner's with IQ>80 is referred to as "high functioning autism". Arnold-Chiari Malformation is the herniation (drooping) of the cerebellar tonsils in the far lower back of the brain.


LIZARD :)

[peglem]

These are terms I picked up from this board-not from being American:D !
I'll try to explain in my very unofficial way and hopefully the experts will be along to explain better.

The term "Kanner's autism" comes from this guy(psychologist? psychiatrist?) who discovered this group of kids with similar characteristics and studied them. So he's kind of the "father" of autism, except around the same time some other dude, Asperger, was also studying a similar group of kids half way around the world and independent from Kanner and kids like his are said to have "asperger's syndrome. Kanner's group was more severe in symptomology and years later the psychiatric community decided to throw the 2 groups intoone category and call it the autism spectrum. So when people say Kanner's autism, they are usually referring to a severe form of autism that was present from birth.

As far as Arnold Chiari malformation(ACM)- This is where the lower part of the brainstem (cerebellum?) protudes into the spinal column canal and interferes with circulation of cerebrospinal fluid. Most doctors say that ACM has nothing to do with autism and its just a coincidence if the two occur in the same kid. But lots and lots of parents feel that all this ACM co-occurring with autism symptoms is more than just a coincidence, and the two are connected. ACM can be detected on an MRI, but frequently doctors won't treat or correct the ACM because they don't think it causes the neurological symptoms.

[Keggy]

You can check my website for links and info on acm
www.geocities.com/keggy11789

[mrsjerome]

If one wants to read about some examples of kids that Kanner had looked at
http://www.neurodiversity.com/library_kanner_1943.pdf.
This sure was a long time ago. I think there are 11 cases posted here. Plus the comments he wrote afterwards. I found it very interesting.

[silentmiaow]

Most of what people think they know about what is "Kanner's" and what isn't, isn't true.

Here is a post I made (http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/?p=299) detailing whether any of Kanner's patients actually fit the modern stereotype, and throwing in some facts people usually don't know about (like the fact that until relatively recently "Kanner autism" was nearly synonymous with "higher functioning" in some circles). Asperger's patients would not by today's standards be said to have Asperger's syndrome, either, by the way, too many of them had delayed speech (and not all of Kanner's patients did, in fact some fit the stereotype easily of Asperger's).

(Which is one reason I don't use the terms Kanner and Asperger to differentiate autistic people, but rather describe whatever characteristics I'm talking about. Less confusion that way, since "Kanner" has meant two totally opposite things over time.)

[Isabelle]

actually, I read kanners' first patients and i noticed the parents' description of the new generation of autistics, they don't match my son born in the 70s, they don't even get closer to the kanners' of the 30s,40s.
i know i am told each autistic is different, but the kanners' description is not something scientific to rely on, but parents do not care,they hear the word "autism" and run home with "such crashing news"...
got to go

[silentmiaow]

I recently read a description of autism in the seventies by a psychoanalyst named Frances Tustin, who still believed in parenting-based models of autism and psychosis (she considered autism one particular form of psychosis IIRC). In attempting to differentiate "Kanner autism" from "childhood schizophrenia," she described "Kanner autism" in a way that fits almost nobody, and "childhood schizophrenia" in a way that fits the vast majority of autistic people I hear about these days ("regressive", health problems, not totally unresponsive to others, testing less well on standardized tests, etc). Which was kind of interesting. (Although I note that I've never actually seen an autistic person who was totally unresponsive to others, ever, and I've seen a lot of autistic people who were described that way.)

[Isabelle]

that's how the other adult autistics were sort of described to me, had no feelings, not able to learn, suffering from all sort of disorders, psychiatric mostly, that "suddenly" would appear.....ha ! until i got to know them and i saw the effects of the drugs. i learned that they understand what we talked about, i learned that many times their "psychotic behaviours" were about some misunderstanding with staff, or unfulfilled need or routine, i saw that if there was a problem between a staff and an autistic, the autistic WAS/HAD the problem, never was the staff fault. if a staff noticed a change on my son 'behaviours' and thought related to the drug/s, he would be removed, the injustice of it all.
sorry, venting ! :(