lilisonna noted that she was unfamiliar with the Bettelheim/Refrigerator Mother thing. An FYI before I talk about it: I am not an expert on Bruno Bettelheim, autism and its causes, or anything else I'm about to blather about, so if anyone chimes in with corrections, they probably know more about what they're talking about than I do. But, here goes.

Bettelheim (the author of The Uses of Enchantment) believed that autism was caused by maternal rejection. The "refrigerator mother" didn't love her children (at least, she didn't love the autistic child -- at least, not the right way) and so the child responded by withdrawing.

This theory was emphatically, horrifyingly, wrong. Bettelheim reached this conclusion in part because he saw mothers of autistic children not touching them a lot, not making eye contact, etc. -- in fact, autistic children often instinctively shy away from physical contact (theyr'e "uncuddly" babies) and are calmer and happier if you avoid eye contact, so the mothers were in fact responding lovingly to do the best they could for their children.

The effect of this theory on the mothers of autistic children is easy to imagine. You are a Bad Mother. You are such a bad mother that you have irreversibly damaged your child. Under optimal conditions, most mothers feel guilt for being imperfect. So imagine that you've been doing your damnedest for difficult child under trying circumstances and now a doctor comes along and says your child is disabled because you didn't love him enough.

The effect on the autistic children was probably nearly as bad. I think treatment often involved separating these kids from their BAD, NEGLECTFUL, EMOTIONALLY DISTANT mothers -- in other words, from their one source of love and stability. (Some of these kids no doubt really were neglected and abused, just like some of any group of kids were neglected and abused. But most came from normal homes and had loving parents who desperately wanted to do well by them.)

There are all sorts of treatments available for autism now, which (as I understand it) are premised more or less on the idea that autism is the result of some sort of organic brain problem -- there are neurological pathways that are not working, and kids are not getting "good, do that again" feedback from their brains when they engage socially with people around them. Brains are malleable, however, especially in the young, so you can work with a young autistic child to reinforce the pathways you want (by rewarding social behavior). (I am TOTALLY NOT AN EXPERT on this, just to be clear -- this is my understanding of how it works.)

I have an online friend whose son was diagnosed with profound autism at an early age, when he didn't learn to talk. My friend's family relocated to California precisely because there would be excellent resources for therapy. She researched therapies, therapists, the laws of her state regarding Early Intervention, etc., etc., etc., etc., and got him into the most promising, intensive early therapies she could find. He has responded really well and from what I have heard, people who meet him now do not realize that he is autistic. He smiles, talks, rough-houses with his brother, etc.

But note, please, the effort engaged in by his mother. His father is involved and loving, but it was his mother who devoted her energy and passion and commitment to finding out where they needed to live, what kind of therapy he needed to get, etc. She was terrified when she found out he was autistic; it was the diagnosis she had most feared when he didn't start to talk. When a child is born with a disability -- whatever it is -- that child's parents are going to be their best advocates, 99% of the time. If you start off by saying, "Okay, the problem here is the parents..." and it's not you've just seriously damaged whatever options that child had for overcoming their disability.

As a side note, the autism rate has gone way up over the last few years, and no one really knows why. It may be an increase in diagnosis -- there are kids now who are diagnosed as having an "autism-spectrum disorder" that in the 1970s would've just been considered kind of weird. (Today, a diagnosis means you can get services, so it's well worth following up, as early as possible, if your child isn't talking on schedule or whatever. Early Intervention is AMAZING.) There is a large contingent that blames vaccines -- the mercury preservative that used to be used in childhood vaccines (thimerosal) or the MMR (which didn't contain thimerosal) are the two that are named most often. There was also the geeks-marrying-geeks theory floated in Wired magazine some years back. I think there may be something to the mercury exposure theory for some kids -- or there may be some other environmental thing that's going on -- but I am really not sure.

So that's my rant about Bettelheim and Refrigerator Mothers.