On 2013 Oct 30, Jamie Horder commented:

This 1957 paper contains the observations of Leo Kanner and his colleague Leon Eisenberg, based on 120 autistic children seen at John Hopkins since Kanner defined the syndrome of "autism" in 1943.

Notably, the authors in this paper suggested that the emotional 'coldness' often seen in parents of autistic children played some causal role in the development of the disorder - though only in conjunction with an 'inborn disturbance of affective contact', i.e. what would today be called a gene x environment interaction.

This idea, taken further, later became notorious as the 'refrigerator mother' psychodynamic theory of autism, associated with the now-discredited Bruno Bettelheim.

By 1971, Kanner denied advocating any kind of psychogenic hypothesis of autism: Kanner L, 1971. However such ideas are certainly evident in this paper.

On 2013 Oct 30, Jamie Horder commented:

This 1957 paper contains the observations of Leo Kanner and his colleague Leon Eisenberg, based on 120 autistic children seen at John Hopkins since Kanner defined the syndrome of "autism" in 1943.

Notably, the authors in this paper suggested that the emotional 'coldness' often seen in parents of autistic children played some causal role in the development of the disorder - though only in conjunction with an 'inborn disturbance of affective contact', i.e. what would today be called a gene x environment interaction.

This idea, taken further, later became notorious as the 'refrigerator mother' psychodynamic theory of autism, associated with the now-discredited Bruno Bettelheim.

By 1971, Kanner denied advocating any kind of psychogenic hypothesis of autism: Kanner L, 1971. However such ideas are certainly evident in this paper.