EL The Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) at an early age and its consequences on the encounters and missed encounters between parents and their childrens

Abstract

In recent years I came across consultations of children between two and nine years old who had been previously diagnosed with ASD at an early age. Such diagnose was made by other professionals who, from a phenomenological analysis, place the patient under some features of the clinical picture of autism.

Taking into account three clinical vignettes with parents of diverse psychic modalities and stories, I will reflect over the past events that lead to a missed encounter with their babies and in which way the annunciation of a determined diagnose precludes the possibility of that missed encounter to transform into a joint meeting parent-child. When an encounter parent-child occurs, it represents the starting point of a fulfilled development of the child’s subjectivity.