The book is written by Yuri Anatolyevich Fesenko, Doctor of Medical Sciences, chief children's psychiatrist of the Health Committee of the Government of St. Petersburg, professor at the Faculty of Clinical Psychology of the St. Petersburg State Pediatric Medical University, academician, honored figure of science and education of the Russian Academy of Education, child psychotherapist and psychiatrist, doctor of the highest category, engaged in the study and treatment of mental disorders in children at the "Center for Restorative Treatment 'Child Psychiatry' named after S.S. Mnukhin" for more than 30 years; Igor Vladimirovich Makarov, Doctor of Medical Sciences, professor, chief freelance children's psychiatrist of the Ministry of Health of Russia in the Northwestern Federal District, Chairman of the Childhood Psychiatry Section of the Russian Society of Psychiatrists, head of the Children's Psychiatry Department of the V.M. Bekhterev National Medical Research Center for Psychiatry, professor of the Psychiatry and Narcology Department of the St. Petersburg State Medical University named after I.I. Mechnikov; Igor Alexandrovich Kolesnikov, candidate of medical sciences, head of the scientific department of the Institute of Neurocommunications and Psychotherapy [Vilnius, Lithuania], psychiatrist, psychotherapist; and Yekaterina Yuryevna Fesenko, doctor of functional diagnostics, examining children with disabilities at the Medical and Social Assistance Center for Disabled Children at the City Children's Clinic No. 19 in the Petrodistrict of St. Petersburg. The book addresses the study of autism from historical, social, psychological-pedagogical, and clinical aspects, presents extensive modern data obtained by domestic and foreign researchers on the discussed problem, and analyzes the existing myths about the prevalence of this severe and complex mental disorder in childhood. The perspectives of many contemporary researchers in the field, practicing doctors involved in its diagnosis and treatment, as well as special psychologists and educators, and social work specialists participating in the correction of disorders and rehabilitation of children with ASD are presented. The authors have made an effort to represent various viewpoints on this phenomenon - early childhood autism (ASD). The authors highlight the main compensatory mechanisms of the child's brain, provide a detailed description of their own method of diagnosing developmental disorders in children using personally obtained data from more than 300 patients, in whom other specialists mistakenly diagnosed autism. Some might think that the book has a "protest orientation", but it was conceived by the authors as a discussion on a controversial scientific topic, which today is a problem that deeply interests completely different people, sometimes having diametrically opposite goals in "cultivating the autistic field". Thus, the book is addressed to practicing physicians (psychiatrists, psychotherapists, neurologists), psychologists, educators, parents of children with autism, and those simply interested in the issues of the emergence, diagnosis, course, and correction of mental disorders in children.
