Childhood autism: an investigation of aetiological factors in twenty-five cases.

TLDR: In 1943 Kanner described a disease entity which he referred to as ‘Infantile Autism’, and Creak and Ini (1960) found no evidence of psychogenic aetiology in a study of 200 parents of autistic children.

Abstract: 1. Twenty-five autistic children were investigated and compared, as were their parents, with a matched control group. 2. Mothers of patients had a significantly longer gestation period and more complications of labour at every stage than mothers of the control group. 3. 56 per cent of the subjects showed unequivocal evidence and a further 28 per cent probable evidence of organic cerebral nervous system disease on the basis of combined neurological and electroencephalographic assessment. 4. No subject scored above the high grade defective level on IQ testing and the patients were slow to develop speech when compared to controls. 5. Fathers of patients were significantly more neurotic than fathers of controls. Both parents of patients gave higher scores on the psychiatric section of the CMI and appeared to have less divergent personalities than parents of the control group. 6. Alcoholism, psychiatric illness, and mental retardation occurred significantly more often in the families of autistic children.