Michael Fitzgerald | |
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![]() Michael Fitzgerald in March 2006 | |
Born | Lucan, Dublin, Ireland | 7 October 1946
Nationality | Irish |
Alma mater | Trinity College, Dublin |
Spouse | Frances Fitzgerald (m. 1990) |
Children | 3 |
Website | professormichaelfitzgerald |
Michael Fitzgerald (born 7 October 1946) is an Irish professor of child and adolescent psychiatry, specialising in autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
His research is in the area of epidemiology of child and adolescent psychiatry. He has been involved in research collaboration in 18 countries and in initiating master's degree programs at Irish universities.[ citation needed ] He has lectured including in London, at the Royal Society, British Academy, and the British Library and also in New York City, Buenos Aires, Tbilisi, Melbourne and many European countries as well as in China, Malaysia, Korea, and Hawaii.[ citation needed ] As of June 2005, he said he had diagnosed over 900 individuals with Asperger syndrome. [1] [2]
In 2004's Autism and Creativity: Is There a Link Between Autism in Men and Exceptional Ability?, [3] Fitzgerald claims that Lewis Carroll, Éamon de Valera, Sir Keith Joseph, Ramanujan, Ludwig Wittgenstein and W. B. Yeats may have been autistic.
In 2005's The Genesis of Artistic Creativity: Asperger's Syndrome and the Arts, [4] he claims that historical figures such as Hans Christian Andersen and George Orwell might have been autistic. [5]
Asperger syndrome (AS), also known as Asperger's syndrome, formerly described a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, and activities. The syndrome has been merged with other disorders into autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and is no longer considered a stand-alone diagnosis. It was considered milder than other diagnoses that were merged into ASD due to relatively unimpaired spoken language and intelligence.
Lorna Gladys Wing was an English psychiatrist. She was a pioneer in the field of childhood developmental disorders, who advanced understanding of autism worldwide, introduced the term Asperger syndrome in 1976 and was involved in founding the National Autistic Society (NAS) in the UK.
Anthony John Attwood is a British psychologist notable for his work on Asperger syndrome. He resides in Queensland, Australia, where he is an Associate Professor at Griffith University.
Sir Simon Philip Baron-Cohen is a British clinical psychologist and professor of developmental psychopathology at the University of Cambridge. He is the director of the university's Autism Research Centre and a Fellow of Trinity College.
High-functioning autism (HFA) was historically an autism classification where a person exhibits no intellectual disability, but may experience difficulty in communication, emotion recognition, expression, and social interaction.
The heritability of autism is the proportion of differences in expression of autism that can be explained by genetic variation; if the heritability of a condition is high, then the condition is considered to be primarily genetic. Autism has a strong genetic basis. Although the genetics of autism are complex, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is explained more by multigene effects than by rare mutations with large effects.
Dr Jacqueline Carol Jackson is a British writer who consults, counsels, speaks and writes on most autism issues. Her doctoral thesis, entitled 'Nurturing the Engagement of Children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder through Digital Polysensory Experiences', awarded from Coventry University, analysed the sensory differences of children with an ASD and the impact of the digital and built environment. Jackson consultants on the design of built environments and the impact of lighting and design on individuals with autism spectrum disorder and other neurodiversities.
Gerald Newport (1948–2023), better known as Jerry Newport, and Mary Newport, née Mary Meinel, also known as Mary Meinel-Newport, were authors, advocates, and public speakers who had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and whose lives became the basis for the 2005 film Mozart and the Whale. Their written works include self-help books related to autism and Asperger's, as well as their 2007 memoir Mozart and the Whale: An Asperger's Love Story.
The autism-spectrum quotient (AQ) is a questionnaire published in 2001 by Simon Baron-Cohen and his colleagues at the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge, UK. Consisting of fifty questions, it aims to investigate whether adults of average intelligence have symptoms of autism spectrum conditions. More recently, versions of the AQ for children and adolescents have also been published.
Peter Szatmari is a Canadian researcher of autism and Asperger syndrome.
Uta Frith is a German-British developmental psychologist and Emeritus Professor in Cognitive Development at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London (UCL). She pioneered much of the current research into autism and dyslexia. Her book Autism: Explaining the Enigma introduced the cognitive neuroscience of autism. She is credited with creating the Sally–Anne test along with fellow scientists Alan Leslie and Simon Baron-Cohen. Among students she has mentored are Tony Attwood, Maggie Snowling, Simon Baron-Cohen and Francesca Happé.
Societal and cultural aspects of autism or sociology of autism come into play with recognition of autism, approaches to its support services and therapies, and how autism affects the definition of personhood. The autistic community is divided primarily into two camps; the autism rights movement and the Pathology paradigm. The pathology paradigm advocates for supporting research into therapies, treatments, and/or a cure to help minimize or remove autistic traits, seeing treatment as vital to help individuals with autism, while the neurodiversity movement believes autism should be seen as a different way of being and advocates against a cure and interventions that focus on normalization, seeing it as trying to exterminate autistic people and their individuality. Both are controversial in autism communities and advocacy which has led to significant infighting between these two camps. While the dominant paradigm is the pathology paradigm and is followed largely by autism research and scientific communities, the neurodiversity movement is highly popular among most autistic people, within autism advocacy, autism rights organizations, and related neurodiversity approaches have been rapidly growing and applied in the autism research field in the last few years.
Asperger syndrome (AS) was formerly a separate diagnosis under autism spectrum disorder. Under the DSM-5 and ICD-11, patients formerly diagnosable with Asperger syndrome are diagnosable with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The term is considered offensive by some autistic individuals. It was named after Hans Asperger (1906–80), who was an Austrian psychiatrist and pediatrician. An English psychiatrist, Lorna Wing, popularized the term "Asperger's syndrome" in a 1981 publication; the first book in English on Asperger syndrome was written by Uta Frith in 1991 and the condition was subsequently recognized in formal diagnostic manuals later in the 1990s.
Johann Friedrich Karl Asperger was an Austrian physician. Noted for his early studies on atypical neurology, specifically in children, he is the namesake of the autism spectrum disorder Asperger syndrome. He wrote more than 300 publications on psychological disorders that posthumously acquired international renown in the 1980s. His diagnosis of autism, which he termed "autistic psychopathy", also garnered controversy. Further controversy arose during the late 2010s over allegations that Asperger referred children to a Nazi German clinic responsible for murdering disabled patients, although his knowledge and involvement remains unknown.
Classic autism, also known as childhood autism, autistic disorder, (early) infantile autism, infantile psychosis, Kanner's autism,Kanner's syndrome, or (formerly) just autism, is a neurodevelopmental condition first described by Leo Kanner in 1943. It is characterized by atypical and impaired development in social interaction and communication as well as restricted, repetitive behaviors, activities, and interests. These symptoms first appear in early childhood and persist throughout life.
Several factors complicate the diagnosis of Asperger syndrome (AS), an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Like other ASD forms, Asperger syndrome is characterized by impairment in social interaction accompanied by restricted and repetitive interests and behavior; it differs from the other ASDs by having no general delay in language or cognitive development. Problems in diagnosis include disagreement among diagnostic criteria, the controversy over the distinction between AS and other ASD forms or even whether AS exists as a separate syndrome, and over- and under-diagnosis for non-technical reasons. As with other ASD forms, early diagnosis is important, and differential diagnosis must consider several other conditions.
Autism, formally called autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or autism spectrum condition (ASC), is a neurodevelopmental disorder marked by deficits in reciprocal social communication and the presence of restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior. Other common signs include difficulties with social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication, along with perseverative interests, stereotypic body movements, rigid routines, and hyper- or hyporeactivity to sensory input. Autism is clinically regarded as a spectrum disorder, meaning that it can manifest very differently in each person. For example, some are nonspeaking, while others have proficient spoken language. Because of this, there is wide variation in the support needs of people across the autism spectrum.
The history of autism spans over a century; autism has been subject to varying treatments, being pathologized or being viewed as a beneficial part of human neurodiversity. The understanding of autism has been shaped by cultural, scientific, and societal factors, and its perception and treatment change over time as scientific understanding of autism develops.
Grunya Efimovna Sukhareva was a Soviet child psychiatrist.
The theory of the double empathy problem is a psychological and sociological theory first coined in 2012 by Damian Milton, an autistic autism researcher. This theory proposes that many of the difficulties autistic individuals face when socializing with non-autistic individuals are due, in part, to a lack of mutual understanding between the two groups, meaning that most autistic people struggle to understand and empathize with non-autistic people, whereas most non-autistic people also struggle to understand and empathize with autistic people. This lack of understanding may stem from bidirectional differences in communication style, social-cognitive characteristics, and experiences between autistic and non-autistic individuals, but not necessarily an inherent deficiency. Recent studies have shown that most autistic individuals are able to socialize, communicate effectively, empathize well, and display social reciprocity with most other autistic individuals. This theory and subsequent findings challenge the commonly held belief that the social skills of autistic individuals are inherently impaired, as well as the theory of "mind-blindness" proposed by prominent autism researcher Simon Baron-Cohen in the mid-1980s, which suggested that empathy and theory of mind are universally impaired in autistic individuals.