
infantile autism and the schizophrenias
in a paper published in 1943, entitled "au-
tistic disturbances of affective con-
tact," i reported from the children's psychi-
atric service of the johns hopkins hospital
observations of 11 children (8 boys and 3
girls) who had in common a pattern of be-
havior not previously considered in its
striking uniqueness.  the symptoms were
viewed as a combination of extreme alone-
ness from the beginning of life and an anx-
iously obsessive desire for the preservation
of sameness.  i concluded the discussion by
saying: "we must assume that these chil-
dren have come into the world with an
innate inability to form the usual, biologi-
cally provided affective contact with people,
just as other children come into the world
with innate physical and intellectual handi-
caps.  if this assumption is correct, a further
study of our children may help to furnish
concrete criteria regarding the still diffuse
notions about the constitutional components
of emotional reactivity.  for here we seem to
have pure-culture examples of inborn au-
tistic disturbances of affective contact."
in my search for an appropriate designa-
tion, i decided in 1944, after much groping,
on the term early infantile autism, thus
accentuating the time of the first manifesta-
tions and the children's limited accessibility.
