Infantile autism: some comments on aspects of differential diagnosis.

Abstract

Summary The history of a boy aged 7 years 5 months, presenting as a true example of infantile autism, is given. The employment of the term “autistic” to describe: abnormal behaviour in severely subnormal children; stress reactions in children with developmental language disorders or minimal cerebral dysfunction affecting language and non‐verbal skills; or children with defective personality development; when these children do not satisfy the criteria for infantile autism, is discussed. The possibility of confusion when “autistic”, as used to describe these children, could be thought by some workers to be synonymous with infantile autism, is stressed. An observation sheet which the present writer finds useful for recording affect in infants and children seen in the Department of Audiology and Education of the Deaf, Manchester University, is described and discussed with reference to children in the categories mentioned above in Section II. Problems of psychogenic aetiology, the wide scatter in developed intelligence in children with infantile autism, and educational diagnosis and placement are discussed.