Kraepelin (1904) described the disabilities and psychoses of many
people institutionalized for mental illness and introduced the term
“dementia praecox” for disorders now referred to as schizophrenia.
Kraepelin (1971) is an English translation of his book on dementia
praecox. Heller (1908) and DeSanctis (1908) described mental
deterioration in young children referring to this as “dementia infantilis”
extrapolating Kraepelin’s term back to earliest childhood. Kraepelin
(1919) discussed the papers of Heller and DeSanctis and agreed that
the children they described would appear to exhibit the earliest
manifestation of dementia praecox.
The name Heller’s syndrome was used for many years to refer to
psychosis in children. The syndrome described by Heller and DeSanctis
would now be considered a disintegrative disorder as opposed to the
core syndrome of autism, which is present from birth (American
Psychiatric Association 1994). Bleuler (1924) employed the term
schizophrenia as a euphemism less stigmatizing than dementia praecox,
and many reports of childhood schizophrenia appeared until well after
Kanner (1943, 1946) introduced the term "early infantile autism."
From
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1 - Dementia praecox and dementia infantilis