10:03pm October 6, 2014

“Even though most of these children were at one time or another looked upon as feebleminded, they are all unquestioningly endowed with good cognitive potentialities…The astounding vocabulary of the speaking children, the excellent memory for events of several years before, the phenomenal rote memory for poems and names, and the precise recollection of complex patterns and sequences, bespeak good intelligence in the sense in which this word is commonly used.”

—

Leo Kanner, 1943

My autistic father (who grew up poor and rural and would not have ever been diagnosed in that era no matter how flagrant his autism) would’ve been two when this was written, and it unquestionably applies to him.

I don’t like all the emphasis on intelligence as meaning people are worth more, and intelligence as meaning a specific thing that a person has a specific amount of, and so forth. But it is very important information, that what we call “Kanner autism” today is not how Kanner described autism. Including estimates of IQ.

Many of his original patients went on to college. Going to college does not make a person nonautistic.

Even the nonverbal girl in his study had an IQ of 90, which they thought would be much higher if she were verbal. Only one or two had an IQ under 70. One had an IQ somewhere in the 140-150 range. So most had IQs that ranged from borderline intellectual disability to ‘gifted’. I don’t believe in IQs, but again this is important information for those who misconstrue what Kanner autism really means.

Some of Asperger’s patients had speech delays. Some of Kanner’s patients didn’t (only having delays in “social speech”).

This is all important information, whether I like the way it’s framed by most people, or not.