
a behavioural and electroencephalographic
study of autistic children
short biographies are given of 10 children,
age 3 to 6 years, diagnosed as suffering from
kanner's syndrome (early infantile autism).
an analysis was made of the free-field acti-
vities of these children compared with a group
of normal children of similar age.  electro-
encephalographic studies were also carried out
on all 10 children, and in two it was possible
to carry out simultaneous behavioural and
eeg observations by means of telemetry.
the children were observed for three minute
periods in four environments of varying
complexity: a. an empty room; b. the same
room with toy wooden blocks present; c.
blocks plus passive adult; d. blocks plus active
adult.  except in a the visual fixations and
manipulatory activities were of significantly
shorter duration in the autistic children than
in the normals, lacked clear 'cut-off' points
and showed relatively little variability between
environments.  the autistic children as a
whole showed virtually no constructive play in
contrast with the normals, though more
time was spent in contact with play materials in
the social environments.  changes in the
time spent in locomotion, gesturing, block-play
and manipulation of other objects in the
environment showed that the autistic children
were acutely responsive to changes in their
environment, including the presence of the social
stimulus.  if the autistic children were
subdivided into those who characteristically showed
stereotypies and those who did not, the
latter sub-group showed a behaviour structure which
was very similar to that of the normals,
whereas the stereotypy sub-group was clearly
differentiated from both the normal children
and the non-stereotypy sub-group.
eight autistic children had waking eeg
records characterized by low voltage irregular
activity without any established rhythms;
one child, a record containing irregular alpha
and another unstable theta activity.  two of
the children with 'flat' laboratory eegs showed
more rhythmic, higher voltage records when
their eegs were telemetred in environment a.
they also showed less stereotyped behaviour.
in environments b and d they showed pro-
gressively more irregular eeg activity and
more stereotypy.
the hypothesis is advanced that autistic
children are in a chronically high state of physio-
logical arousal.  the findings of the present
study and those of other workers are discussed
with respect to this hypothesis.
