Are Autistic Children retarded?
No, but they may fit the criteria for retardation if they are not treated appropriately or early enough in the course of the disease. Autistic children, once “normalized,” are as smart as any other children, and many seem be more intelligent than average. Are there Different Kinds of Autism? Yes. When autism was first described by Dr Leo Kanner of Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1943 (he categorized the symptoms after observing 11 children with this disorder) the incidence was estimated to be one in every ten thousand births. At that time the condition seemed to be evident shortly after birth. This type of birth-onset autism we now label Classical Autism. The incidence of Classical Autism has not changed since the illness was first described. It still occurs in about one or two out of every 10,000 births. However, the kind of autism that predominates today differs from Dr. Kanner’s Classical (“Infantile Onset”) Autism in that the symptoms of autism do not appear right after birth, but rather
