Sociobiology

969). In the late 15th century, a story describing what may have been a severely autistic boy was included in the writings of the German monk, Martin Luther. The description Luther gave of the child was that he “was a soulless mass of flesh possessed by the devil” (“Autism Spectrum, 2008). This child, the well-known feral child Victor of Aveyron, was “found” and showed the same symptoms of what we now call autism. In the 1800s, the term “idiot savant” was used for these children. Almost 100…