Washington. The American known as the world’s first patient to be diagnosed with autism died in mid-June at the age of 89, his relatives announced.
Donald Triplett, referenced as Donald T. Within the scientific literature, he was diagnosed in 1943, when he was 10 years old, as a carrier of the neurocognitive disorder called “autism”.
As the first case identified by medicine, the American played a key role in the identification of this disability, which led him to respond to numerous interviews and to be the subject of a documentary and a book.
As a child, Triplett did not respond to his parents’ calls and was not interested in other children, but he was able to retain highly accurate information and figures on a variety of subjects.
Distraught, his parents wrote a 22-page letter to a child psychiatrist, detailing their son’s behavior.
The letter has been kept as a reference in the documentation of the symptoms of the disorder.
Despite his diagnosis, which at the time was considered severely handicapping, Donald Triplett was able to continue his studies and work for more than 60 years in a bank in the small town of Forest, Mississippi.
In 2020, one in 36 children was diagnosed with an autistic disorder in the United States, according to a survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the public health authority.
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