Journal of Psychology and Behavior Studies ISSN: 2753-2364 DOI: 10.32996/jpbs Journal Homepage: www.al-kindipublisher.com/index.php/jpbs JPBS AL-KINDI CENTER FOR RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT Copyright: © 2022 the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Published by Al-Kindi Centre for Research and Development, London, United Kingdom. Page | 5 | RESEARCH ARTICLE Autism Spectrum Disorder: The State of Play Fadoua Kadiri Doctoral student, Faculty of Letters, Languages and Arts, Ibn Tofail University, Morocco Corresponding Author: Fadoua Kadiri, E-mail: fadoua.kadiri@uit.ac.ma | ABSTRACT This review paper traces the evolution of autism since its simultaneous discovery back in the forties, by Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger, until the present day. Many disciplines, ranging from psychoanalysis to behaviorism, struggled to understand autism and provide a map to navigate it but ended up with only fragments of this multifaceted disorder. Even the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) kept changing autism’s categorization from infantile psychosis to behavioral disorder and, recently, to neuro-developmental disorder. Today, autism’s rapid strides toward the realm of neuroscience are blurring all the frontiers between the aforementioned disciplines, transcending the black-white dichotomy and establishing a new grey area. | KEYWORDS Autism, ASD, disability, neurodiversity | ARTICLE INFORMATION ACCEPTED: 01 July 2022 PUBLISHED: 13 July 2021 DOI: 10.32996/jpbs.2022.2.2 1. Introduction What is autism? Is it a lifelong disability, a different form of cognition, or both and more? 1 In reality, all these questions carry some sort of truth about the condition, and future progress is expected to throw more light on it. The United Nations started recently referring to autism, or what is known now as an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), as a condition “mainly characterized by its unique social interactions, non-standard ways of learning, keen interests in specific subjects, inclination to routines, challenges in typical communications and particular ways of processing sensory information.” 2 However, many experts and even writers define autism as a constellation of anomalies affecting a myriad of areas such as “mot or functioning, balance, the physical sense of where your own body is and inner consciousness.” 3 While other authorities in the field of psychiatry still believe that autism is an impairment affecting notably social behavior and communication and characterized by repetitive, invariant activities. This set of deficiencies is usually used as a benchmark against which the severity of the condition is measured, and autism red flags are identified. This situation might be explained by the fact that autism spectrum disorder has been, since its discovery in the forties, and still, very elusive amid the lack of conclusive evidence about what causes it. 1 Silberman, S. (2015). Neurotribes: The legacy of autism and the future of neurodiversity. Penguin. 2 World Autism Awareness Day 2 April, retrieved on September 09, 2021, from the United Nations website: https://www.un.org/en/observances/autism- day/background#:~:text=The%20United%20Nations%20General%20Assembly,an%20integral%20part%20of%20society. 3 Solomon, A. (2012). Far from the tree: Parents, children and the search for identity. Simon and Schuster.P. 222