SUMMARY
Unfavourable pre‐, peri‐ and neonatal events in the birth records of autistic children were examined. The rate of those factors was compared with the expected rate in the general population and the rate in their non‐autistic siblings. Several potentially neuropathogenic factors occurred at a significantly high rate in the autistic group, including breech delivery, the presence of amniotic meconium, low birth weight, low Apgar score, elevated serum bilirubin, haemolytic disease and Respiratory Distress Syndrome. The autistic children had significantly more unfavourable factors than did their siblings. The study supports the findings of investigations which concluded that autistic children have suffered a high rate of obstetrical events which may have caused brain damage.
Weiner (1977) argued that the widespread impression of Rorschach failure is based on ill‐founded research. Much of the work is purely “empirical” in nature, insofar as treatment samples are compared across randomly selected Rorschach measures. “Conceptual” studies, by contrast, offer some rationale as to why the measures in question are relevant to the differentiation attempted. This investigation compares two types of empirical study with the two types of conceptual research. Based on results, it is argued that the Rorschach does indeed have some validity and that poor research is at least partly culpable for the Rorschach's perceived failure.
Finer discrimination among school refusers may help clear the confusion surrounding the school refusal syndrome. This paper reviews two aspects of the literature-that dealing with etiological theories and that which explicitly addresses the heterogeneity of the school refusal concept. Variables that consistently emerge as potential discriminators among school refusers are identified, and an attempt is made to determine their interrelationships.
It has been argued that school refusal may not be a unitary syndrome, but a common presenting symptom founded on differing underlying dynamics. The paper explores this hypothesis empirically. The clinical files of 100 refusers were scored for several variables which could potentially differentiate between school refusal subtypes, and for several commonly accepted beliefs about school refusal. The data were subjected to a variety of analyses, culminating in cluster analysis. Cluster (C) 1 consisted of children who feared separation from dependent, overprotective mothers. C2 youngsters were perfectionistic and depressed. They dominated mothers who had been deprived in childhood. C3 consisted of extensively disturbed children from multiproblem families, who had suffered early separation or loss, and who were fearful and depressed.
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