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Experimental psychotic children, 9 boys and 3 girls (mean age=66.9 mos.) were compared with 5 non-psychotic subnormal boys (mean age=72 mos.) in body imitation, motor-object imitation and spontaneous object use and also for influence of task class and difficulty using each subject's adaptive age as referant. Psychotic children did poorly in body, better in motor-object imitation and best in object use. Controls achieved higher body and motor-object imitation scores. Task difficulty equally affected the performances of subjects and controls. Body imitation failure, traced to neurophysiological deficiencies, combined with severe central language disorders in the psychotic group, precluded non-verbal and verbal interpersonal communication. It is suggested that during early life, psychotic children, unlike the subnormal who have less severe visual-motor or language processing handicaps, cannot use parents' help to interpret environment.

Five diagnostic systems designed to differentiate infantile autism and early childhood schizophrenia were compared by deriving scores on 44 children referred consecutively to the same clinical center. While the autistic scales devised by Rimland, Polan and Spencer, Lotter, and the British Working Party correlated significantly, the degree of correspondence (35%) indicated that several children obtained high autistic scores in one system but low scores in another. The BWP's term “schizophrenia” has more correspondence with the term “autism” used by others than with Rimland's “schizophrenia.” In the DeMyer-Churchill categorical system (early schizophrenia, primary autism, secondary autism, and non-psychotic subnormal), “primary autism” most resembles Rimland's concept of infantile autism as measured by his E-1 version. All other systems differentiate psychotic from non-psychotic children but do not distinguish any of the psychotic subgroups.

Infant care practices and innate activity are compared in a study of 96 families representing 33 autistic and early schizophrenic, 33 matched normal, and 30 subnormal children. Data from objectively rated interviews indicated that parents of psychotic and normal children were alike in infant care practices, total stimulation scores, and factor analytically derived scores. Parents of subnormals were the least stimulating and coldest, providing fewer contacts and less physical freedom to the infants than the other parents. Normal infants were more active but autistic and subnormal did not differ on any infant rating item. Infant factor scores showed that autistic and subnormal infants were most alike in the alertness factor, both below normal infants. Social factors did not differ. Brain damage indices were highest in subnormal and lowest in normal, all differing significantly. Results are discussed and interpreted to substantiate criticism of theories that attribute autism to parental or organic-environmental causation during infancy.

Due to etiological implications, parental intellectuality defined by 29 descriptive rating scales was compared in 96 families. Parents represented 33 autistic and schizophrenic children, 33 matched normals, and 30 subnormals. Data was obtained from objectively rated interviews, WAIS and other scales. All groups were alike in characteristics they sought in spouses and children, premarital interests, reading preferences, and life style. With the child's age, sex, ordinal position, race, religion and SES held constant, only one significant difference was found between parents of normal and autistic children. The latter emphasized academic success less in autistic than matched normals in their children. All parents of deviant children desired improvement in speech and relatedness, realistically deemphasizing intellectual achievement. Fathers' verbal IQs were significantly higher for autistic than subnormal groups. Parents of normals were significantly younger at child's birth, an unexpected finding implying a neurological link between autism and subnormality.