Limits of Methodological Differences in Family Studies

Abstract

Kanner’s (1943) lucid clinical description of the autistic syndrome enabled clinicians from many different regions to identify similar children. Although such children were identified with increasing regularity, the origins of their strange behavior continued to be mysterious and puzzling. Among the first and most extensive efforts to clarify these unknown causes have been the research studies seeking links between the peculiar characteristics of the autistic child and his parents and their family life. A large proportion of these publications have claimed direct and indirect evidence that these parents show psychopathology of personality, communication styles, child-rearing proclivities, and family interactions. These pathological factors were widely considered as primary explanations for the child’s autistic development. Yet another group of studies well illustrated by McAdoo and DeMyer (Chapter 17) and comprehensively reviewed by Cantwell et al. (Chapter 18) do not find evidence for pathogenic traits in parents of autistic children. These two opposing views on the parents of autistic children have been supported by large numbers of publications. (Over 100 were cited in Cantwell et al.)