In 1943, Kanner published "Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact."1 Kanner had been chosen to lead the first child psychiatry
service in a pediatric hospital in the United States, located in the Harriet
Lane Home for Children in The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Md. With
only medical school training in pediatrics and child psychiatry but with the
gift of astute observation, Kanner soon recognized a disorder previously not
described: autism. In addition to his remarkable recognition and conceptualization
of the clinical signs shared by children with autism, he also observed how
they differed. One of the differences he noticed was that although the children
with autism appeared physically healthy, some of them had relatively large
heads.