Eccentricity and autism

• Main Author: Tantum, Digby John Howard
• Published: University of London 1986
• Subjects: 610; Schizophrenia
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.336511

Over a hundred adults, aged 16 to 65, were referred to the author by psychiatric colleagues in response to a request for possible research subjects for a study of eccentricity and social isolation not attributable to psychosis. Reliable scales for rating odd non-verbal expression, odd speech, other abnormalities of social interaction, unusual interests, clumsiness, schizoid personality characteristics and childhood abnormalities were developed and used for rating 60 of these referrals, the subjects of the present thesis. Multivariate analysis of retrospective developmental and current assessments confirmed Wing and Gould's (1979) finding that a triad of impairments in communication, social interaction and imagination were commonly associated. The subjects with a history of the triad retained the same symptoms in adulthood: the triad being then characterised by oddities of non-verbal expression, gaucheness and other disruptions of normal social interaction and unusual interests and pre-occupations. The clinical picture in these subjects was identical to that described in "near-normal" autistic adults or in children and adults with autistic personality disorder, and a diagnosis of 'adult autism' was made in 46 out of the 60 subjects. On the basis of a systematic comparison of the autistic and the non-autistic subjects, including two experimental tests of the interpretation of non-verbal cues, it is suggested that a disorder of non-verbal communication is a basic handicap in autism. 1