
cognitive functioning in early infantile autism: an examination of four cases
by means of the wechsler intelligence scale for children
the results are communicated which were obtained from an examination,
by means of the wechsler intelligence scale for children, of four cases of
early infantile autism.  these cases had developed in such a way that a
reliable investigation by means of a mental test had become possible.
according to their full scale iq's the four cases fell within the category of
dull normal intelligence or less.  all of them showed a considerable
discrepancy between the verbal and the performance iq, the performance iq being
of much higher value.  the composition of the autistic test profiles was
characterized by a large variability in the subtest scores, discriminating the
autistic group significantly from non-autistic control groups.  the subtest
score divergencies, responsible for the large variability, showed a distinct
pattern, being specific for the autistic group as a whole.  this group could
be considered as a distinct group particularly by a marked tendency to achieve
poorly and far below the subject's average level in the subtests comprehension
and vocabulary, and to achieve superiorly and far above that level in the
subtests block design and object assembly.  by specifying the mental functions,
conditional for success in these four subtests that occupy extreme positions
within the autistic test profiles, it was concluded that the autistic patients
apparently were able to achieve well, or even superiorly, only if the task
could be performed on a purely perceptual level.  but they failed as soon as
an appeal was made to thinking proper.  this was thought to be due to a
disability in dealing with imaginary things and imaginary situations, or,
in other words, to an incapability to objectify what is not actually present
in the subject's concrete situation.  it is proposed that this impairment
could be reduced to a lack of symbolic means, being the correlate of a
defective or insufficiently developed language in the patients.  it is further
proposed that children suffering from early
infantile autism might not be able,
or at a later stage only, to reach that level of language development in which
words can be used as symbols,
representing absent things and absent situations.
