De autismepioniers van Nederland, deel 2

Abstract

Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger are widely considered to be the first who described the syndrome of autism during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Much lesser-known is that around the same time, the staff of the Paedological Institute (PI) in Nijmegen wrote about autism in a similar way. This article, the second installment of a two-parter, analyzes the volume of Grewel, Prick, Sunier, Kamp and Gaudia (1954), entitled Infantiel autisme, the first book about autism in the Netherlands, to which pi staff member Ida Frye (1909-2003) contributed. In addition, it devotes attention to the scientific career of Frye and the life of her former pupil Siem (1932-1977), the first Dutch person with an autism diagnosis.