A year before Asperger's first on ‘autistic psychopathy’ appeared, Kanner (1943) published his famous first account of eleven children with a pattern of abnormal behaviour that he decided to call ‘early infantile autism’. He began as follows: ‘Since 1938, there have come to our attention a number of children whose condition differs so markedly and uniquely from anything reported so far, that each case merits – and I hope will eventually receive – a detailed consideration of its fascinating peculiarities’.

The characteristics of Kanner's syndrome

Kanner pointed out that these children had a number of characteristics in common. Kanner and Eisenberg (1956) selected five diagnostic criteria from Kanner's descriptions. Kanner's own words are given in quotation marks. The expansions and examples are based on his descriptions and my clinical experience.

1. ‘A profound lack of affective contact with other people’. When young, the children appear aloof and indifferent to other people, especially other children. Kanner wrote: ‘There is, from the start, an extreme autistic aloneness that, wherever possible, disregards, ignores, shuts out anything that comes to the child from outside’. Their parents describe them as ‘self-sufficient’, ‘like in a shell’, ‘acting as if people weren't there’, ‘happiest when alone’.

2. […]