Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and its Implications for a Neural Theory of Behavior. By Bernard Rimland. New York:  Appleton-Century-Crafts, 1964.  282 pp.

In the score of years since Leo Kanner named and delineated the syndrome of early infantile autism, its distinctiveness as a clinical and diagnostic entity has been a moot issue. Other sources of controversy have been the consistent identification of the autistic child with highly intelligent and educated parents, the general question of etiology, and the tendency of some investigators to approach the disorder as a variation of childhood schizophrenia. The author of this well ordered and lucidly written monograph, winner of a recent Century Psychology Series Award, reviews the relevant literature, presents his own theory on the nature and cause of autism, and speculates on the implications of this hypothesis. It is described by Dr. Kanner in a foreword as a “logically cohesive chain of theories, which lends itself to respectfully sober scrutiny.”

The evidence on the above-mentioned controversies is sufficient, in Dr. Rimland's opinion, to resolve them as follows: Infantile autism is a distinctive syndrome. The autistic child's parents are, in terms of intellect and personality, a “unique and highly homogeneous group.” Their behavior could be accounted for by a “very simply heritable mechanism.” Early infantile autism can be differentiated from childhood schizophrenia, and it is “clearly accurate and desirable” to do so. To facilitate the differential diagnosis, a suggested check list is appended.

Autism is viewed as a primarily cognitive problem, an inability to integrate past and present experience, resulting from an impairment in the reticular formation. This network of nerve cells in the brain stem, which has been called the brain's “master switchboard,” is marked by underactivity in infantile autism and overactivity in childhood schizophrenia.