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EARLY ENVIRONMENTAL STRESS AND INFANTILE AUTISM
Author(s) -
Harper Juliet,
Williams Sara
Publication year - 1974
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/j.1326-5377.1974.tb47736.x
Subject(s) - infantile autism , autism , vulnerability (computing) , incidence (geometry) , psychology , environmental stress , developmental psychology , stress (linguistics) , clinical psychology , ecology , biology , linguistics , philosophy , physics , computer security , computer science , optics
A retrospective study investigating the incidence of reproductive complications and early environmental stresses in the developmental histories of a group of 131 autistic children and matched emotionally disturbed and physically ill controls was undertaken. Analysis of data revealed that both physiological and psychological stresses were most evident in the autistic group. It was suggested that the autistic children were already potentially unable to assimilate stress due to some neurophysiological vulnerability which may be the fundamental determinant of the condition.