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15th July 1965.
Dear Michael:
Thank you for your further letter about autism. It is not an easy letter to assimilate or even to understand, because you typed it just as you were thinking it, but I shall keep it. I am sure that it really does contain the sort of ideas which germinate.
Yes, there is a tremendous difference between rolling a pencil to and fro between a patient and oneself and the endless rocking or rolling of pencils or whatever happens that goes on without relationships. As you say, the child is beginning to get better when there is a communication through one of these primitive repetitions. I know an autistic child who was treated by very clever interpretations and who has done moderately well. What started off the treatment, however, was something which the first analyst did, and it is strange that I have never been able to get the second analyst to acknowledge the importance of what I will describe. The first analyst, Dr. Maida Hall, died. Dr. Hall found this boy