Isabelle Rapin, Who Advanced Concept of an Autism Spectrum, Dies at 89

[JSngry]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/09/science/obituary-neurologist-isabelle-rapin-autism.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fobituaries&action=click&contentCollection=obituaries&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0

Dr. Rapin’s focus on autism evolved from her studies of communications and metabolic disorders that cause mental disabilities and diminish children’s ability to navigate the world. For decades she treated deaf children, whose difficulties in communicating limited their path to excelling in school and forced some into institutions.

“Communications disorders were the overarching theme of my mother’s career,” Dr. Oaklander said in an interview.

In a short biography written for the Journal of Child Neurology in 2001, Dr. Rapin recalled a critical moment in her work on autism. “After evaluating hundreds of autistic children,” she wrote, “I became convinced that the report by one-third of parents of autistic preschoolers, of a very early language and behavioral regression, is real and deserving of biologic investigation.”

Along the way, she helped debunk the myth that emotionally cold mothers were to blame for their children’s autism, and advocated early educational intervention for autistic children, with a focus on their abilities, not their disabilities. She also popularized the use of the term “autism spectrum disorder,” which refers to a wide range of symptoms and their severity.

“She would never let us say that autism is a single disorder,” Dr. Mark Mehler, chairman of the department of neurology at Einstein, said in an interview. “She always said there were a thousand different causes.”