Recent Developments in the Study of Early Childhood Psychoses: Infantile Autism, Childhood Schizophrenia, and Related Disorders

Abstract

The research literature on psychotic disturbances of early childhood has rapidly expanded in the last 6 years. Since the appearance of Rimland's review of infantile autism in 1964 and the annotated bibliography on childhood schizophrenia done by Tilton, DeMyer, and Loew 2 years later, publications relevant to early childhood psychoses have numbered more than 400 articles and six books, 1 making it increasingly difficult to keep abreast of current research trends. Recent investigations have been characterized by renewed interest in the development of treatment procedures, attempts at more adequate description of perceptual processes, intelligence, and language, and a search for neurobiological correlates. In this review we shall summarize some of these newer directions in research, with the hope of clarifying a number of critical issues and further stimulating the design of systematic research strategies and effective therapeutic methodologies.