how did autism develop?

Answer 1

I'm not quite sure what you're asking here. I don't know whether you're trying to figure out why some people are autistic, the history of autism, how autism originated, or something else entirely, so I'll try to answer all three briefly.

Autism was described in the 1940s by both Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger. Leo Kanner's account of autism was accepted fairly early into the DSM as autistic disorder, while Asperger's account entered the DSM as Asperger's disorder in 1994. Autism existed long before that however - it is involved in the changeling myths of European folklore, plus scientists like Newton may have been autistic. It didn't just suddenly appear in 1940 because of thimerosal in vaccines. It's probably been part of human variation for hundreds of thousands of years.

Autism appears to be genetic. My family is fairly typical of families of autistics in that I'm autistic, my parents display autistic traits, and I have relatives on the spectrum. Autism isn't mercury poisoning, and it isn't a behavioral disorder caused by bad parenting. It also isn't gluten and casein allergies, though we tend to have a higher incidence of things like food allergies than the general non-autistic population. The fact that some of us get less stimmy and more able to learn after we have these foods eliminated from our diets doesn't mean that we're no longer autistic, it means that we're less miserable from physical problems.

Answer 2

I do not believe it is actually known as to what causes autism or autism spectrum disorders or aspergers or pervasive developmental disorders. It is likely has many contributing factors whose combined total load leads to the neurodevelopmental disorder. An awesome website that deals with non-invasive and holistic treatment for these disorders is www.handle.org

Answer 3

It was discovered in 1912 by Eugene Bleuler. Here is the info :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism#History