Historical Background
Knowledge about autism in Sweden was very limited until the mid-late 1970s. The predominant view, based on no evidence, was that autism was caused by poor parenting. This view has been difficult to root out and has led to enormous suffering and unwarranted interventions well into the twenty-first century.
Anna-Lisa Annell, professor of child and adolescent psychiatry in Uppsala, had shown interest already in the 1950s in what was at the time referred to as childhood psychosis and its possible links with brain damage, as documented in her thesis on pertussis, possible anoxia attacks, and behavior problems in children.
In the 1960s child psychiatrist Karl Grunewald, later in life head of the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, started a campaign/lobbying with a view to improving the situation for young and older people with intellectual disability. For a long time he was the driving force in the process of shutting down the big institutions for the...
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References and Readings
Arvidsson, O, Lichtenstein, P, Gillberg, C, Lundström S (2017) Fewer symptoms required for clinical diagnosis of autism: A population based study. Submitted
Idring, S., Lundberg, M., Sturm, H., Dalman, C., Gumpert, C., Rai, D., Lee, B. K., & Magnusson, C. (2015). Changes in prevalence of autism spectrum disorders in 2001–2011: Findings from the Stockholm youth cohort. J Autism Dev Disord, 45(6), 1766–1773.
The Swedish Act concerning Support and Service for Persons with Certain Functional Impairments (LSS) 1993:387
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Gillberg, C., Nordin-Olsson, E. (2017). Sweden and Autism. In: Volkmar, F. (eds) Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6435-8_102034-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6435-8_102034-1
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