Almost at the same time but presumably independently of each other Kanner (1943) and Asperger (1944) drew attention to some cases of psychiatrically disturbed children in their care who from very early childhood on had exhibited a deep-rooted maladjustment to the world around them or, in Kanner's words, "an inability to relate themselves in the ordinary way to people and to situations from the beginning of life". They called these children "autistic" expressing thus their view that this inability to relate to surroundings was an intrinsic and fundamental maladjustment to which other peculiarities, e. g. of speech, behaviour, and intellectual ability, which had received much attention previously, were to be traced back in order fully to be understood.