Sukhareva—Prior to Asperger and Kanner

Abstract

As early as 1926, the Kiev-based child psychiatrist Grunya Efimovna Sukhareva (Груня Ефимовна Сухарева) (1891-1981) published a detailed description of autistic traits in a number of children in a scientific German psychiatry and neurology journal. She initially used the term "schizoid (eccentric) psychopathy" but later replaced it with "autistic (pathological avoidant) psychopathy" to describe the clinical picture of autism. Her original article was available almost two decades before the case reports of Asperger and Kanner; nevertheless, Sukhareva's pioneer work has been greatly overlooked. Here we present her description of autistic psychopathy in relation to the DSM-5 criteria of today.