Kanner Syndrome: What It Is And How It Is Related To ASD
Until relatively recently, autistic disorders received different names depending on the cognitive, emotional, relational and social characteristics of each individual.
In addition to Asperger’s syndrome, Kanner syndrome was one of the autistic disorders that were diagnoseduntil changes in diagnostic manuals put an end to its concept.
Today we are going to discover a little more in depth what Kanner syndrome is, who discovered it, how it differs from Asperger’s, the history of its discovery and theoretical conceptualization, as well as understanding why it is no longer diagnosed.
Kanner syndrome It is one of the names by which classic autism was known, as opposed to Asperger’s syndrome.. If in Asperger’s we would talk about highly functional autism at a cognitive level, in Kanner syndrome we would talk about children with problems in different intellectual abilities, in addition to social, relational and empathy problems. This disorder was first described by the same person who gave him his last name, Dr. Leo Kanner.
Although today the different syndromes and disorders associated with autism have been included within the category of Autism Spectrum Disorders, it is true that the names Kanner syndrome and Asperger syndrome continue to be very important. Each person with autism is different and, depending on each case, it will be necessary to take into account how affected the cognitive abilities are, in addition to the emotional and communicative ones.
Symptoms of this syndrome
The main symptom of Kanner syndrome or classic autism is an abnormal or deficient development of social interaction and communication. People who suffer from this syndrome give the impression that they are indifferent to the reactions of other human beings, even to people who are part of their closest circle, whether adults or children. As can be seen in Asperger’s syndrome, the person hardly has empathy and affection.
Normally, babies without psychopathology smile at a mobile human face, in addition to showing interest and curiosity in other people. Very soon they come to pay attention to what others are doing. On the other hand, children who suffer from Kanner syndrome show an excessive interest in inanimate objects, leaving aside the people themselves. They may spend hours and hours doing ritualistic behaviors, such as spinning a top or playing or bouncing a ball.
People with Kanner syndrome do not usually make eye contact with other people, and if they do, they appear to be looking through them. Besides, They present problems at the communicative level, with a high linguistic deterioration or with delay in language acquisition. His way of speaking is very anomalous, with a shrill, monotonous and metallic voice. There are cases of adults who manifest global aphasia, that is, a total restriction of speech, although there are also linguistic disabilities.
They also present language disorders, such as delayed echolalia, pronominal inversion and other linguistic phenomena, repetitive and stereotyped play activities, mostly carried out alone. Kanner himself called these ritualistic phenomena “insistence on identity.”.
Furthermore, people diagnosed with this syndrome would be characterized by a significant lack of imagination, good mechanical memory, and no deformities or motor or physical problems. Kanner emphasized that these traits were already visible in early childhood, wanting to highlight their differences with other “autistic” disorders of later onset, such as schizophrenia.
Among the most serious symptoms that we find in Kanner syndrome are those that provoke the aversion of others. Among these symptoms we find behaviors such as intense rocking, head banging, random aggressive behavior, and self-mutilation. Hypersensitivity and hyperreactivity to sensory stimulation can also be observed, which causes people with Kanner syndrome to express it through screaming, running away, covering their ears at a sound or not tolerating touch.
History of this concept in psychiatry
Since the beginnings of psychology and psychiatry, autism has been seen as a specific form of childhood psychosis.
Kanner syndrome It was first described in 1943 by Dr. Leo Kanner, who worked at John Hopkins Hospital.. He made his findings just a year before another important doctor in the field, Mr. Hans Asperger, described the well-known syndrome. The first definition of Kanner syndrome corresponds to the traditional idea of autism, that is, people who from a very young age show relational problems, empathy and cognitive disabilities.
In 1956 Kanner published a work on the syndrome that he had conceptualized together with his colleague Leon Eisenberg, known for being the inventor of the diagnostic label ADHD. It is from then on that autism has acquired greater importance in scientific research, new autistic disorders have been proposed and knowledge about this type of psychological problem in the pediatric field has increasingly expanded.
Numerous authors, such as Lorna Wing, Michael Rutter and van Krevelen, described cases of autism that differed from what Kanner saw, even though the main symptoms of lack of empathy and relational problems were still present. They saw that there were different levels of cognitive impairmentmaking the Kanner-Asperger dichotomy popular, especially in the eighties, to differentiate between cognitively dysfunctional autism and functional autism.
Likewise, it should be said that Kanner syndrome has not been such a popular expression to refer to classic autism, since that term is preferred over Kanner. Kanner conceptualized the syndrome when there was already the definition of autism proposed by Eugen Bleuler at the beginning of the 20th century. Bleuler defined autistic subjects as people who actively retreated into their fantasy world.. Kanner related this definition to schizophrenia, with which he preferred to speak of Kanner syndrome as something different from the idea of autism, although in essence it coincides.
Both Kanner syndrome and Asperger’s and other related disorders have been defined with a certain subjectivity and vagueness in nomenclature. Other autism scholars, such as Lorna Wing or Van Krevelen, had some problems objectively defining each autistic disorder, which called into question the solidity of these problems as independent constructs.
It is for all this that it is not surprising that autism spectrum disorders have ended up being united in the same category. Currently the labels “autism”, “Asperger syndrome” and “Kanner syndrome”, among others, are included in the relatively new category introduced in the DSM-5 (2013), “Autism Spectrum Disorders”.
Kanner syndrome It was conceptualized at a time when child psychology, psychiatry and clinical pediatrics were immature disciplines.. The scientific methods to demonstrate his constructs were still somewhat rudimentary, in addition to the problem that the researchers themselves could have a high bias when interpreting their results and there was not as much control as there is today.
Regardless of the mistakes that Dr. Kanner may have made, this psychiatrist has the merit of being a pioneer in research on traditional autism, its conceptualization and its treatment, in addition to expanding the knowledge of child psychiatry. At that time, children who were not like the rest, regardless of what specific symptoms they had, could end up in an orphanage or admitted to a psychiatric hospital without receiving specialized care, something that changed with the scientific study of autism and its varieties.
Reflection and conclusion
Kanner syndrome is a diagnostic label that, due to changes in the relatively recent DSM-5. Now Autistic disorders are included under the same label and, although the differences between people with relational, emotional and empathy problems continue to be taken into account depending on whether or not they are cognitively functional, it is agreed that they are, in essence, autistic.
Classic autism coincides with the definition given of this syndrome by Kanner. Nowadays, a diagnosis of this syndrome would not be given, at least officially, but of course the type of intervention that would be applied to the person would coincide with that of the rest of autistic people, focused on knowing how to interpret the emotional clues of the face and control of self-injurious and repetitive behaviors.
Although the term is obsolete, there is no doubt that the research carried out by Kanner and other autism scholars has contributed to a more scientific and humanitarian vision of people who suffer from this disorder. We have gone from seeing autistic children as impossible to “correct” or “cure” to gradually including them in all types of activities. and situations in which they can relate to children without any psychopathology, although, of course, with limitations.
