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Kanner, in a highly interesting article, describes peculiarities of language in children 'whose extreme withdrawal and disability to form the casual relations to people were noticed from the beginning of life'. Frequently these children say things which seem to have no meaningful connection with the situation in which they are voiced. Kanner was able to ascertain that some of these irrelevant remarks were meaningful in terms of earlier experiences and were of metaphorical significance in the later situation. The irrelevance of the child's remarks results only from the narrow and individual meaning of his words and phrases and his inability to communicate his personal symbols to the social group. Kanner further calls attention to other peculiarities of autistic speech, particularly to the confusion of 'I' and 'you', and comments on the significance of these observations from the standpoint of understanding schizophrenic language.
This study of autistic language will readily recall the formulations of Freud in tracing the unconscious processes underlying speech, especially his comments on schizophrenic thought in The Unconscious (1915). Kanner's observations represent a valuable contribution which points the way to further research into these problems.