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Childhood Autism: An Investigation of Aetiological Factors in Twenty-five Cases

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

M. E. Lobascher ,
P. E. Kingerlee  and
S. S. Gubbay
M. E. Lobascher
Affiliation:
Princess Margaret Hospital for Children, Perth, West Australia; The Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond St., London W.C.1
P. E. Kingerlee
Affiliation:
Child Guidance Clinic, Mental Health Services, Perth, West Australia; St. Crispin Hospital, Duston, Northampton
S. S. Gubbay
Affiliation:
Princess Margaret Hospital for Children, Perth, West Australia
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Extract

In 1943 Kanner described a disease entity which he referred to as ‘Infantile Autism’. Creak and Ini (1960) found no evidence of psychogenic aetiology in a study of 200 parents of autistic children. Bender (1955) retrospectively studied children seen at Bellevue Hospital for behavioural or developmental disorders and who had been diagnosed as schizophrenic before seven years of age. No preponderance of the sophisticated, intelligent, well-to-do parents as described by Kanner was found; every racial and religious group was represented, Jews predominating slightly. A strong genetic predisposing factor was indicated—40 per cent of the parents were schizophrenic. Stroh (1962) insists that the child's condition cannot be attributed to maternal mishandling, and Wing (1966) has said ‘It is possible to interpret the data to support both environmental and biological theories of primary causation, but on the whole the former argument is very difficult to sustain.’

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 117 , Issue 540 , November 1970 , pp. 525 - 529
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1970 

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