Refrigerator mothers

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Summary

From the 1950s through the early 1970s, the American medical establishment thought it had found the cause of autism: poor mothering. Doctors presumed that the bizarre behaviors of autistic children...

From the 1950s through the early 1970s, the American medical establishment thought it had found the cause of autism: poor mothering. Doctors presumed that the bizarre behaviors of autistic children--rigid rituals, difficulty with speech, extreme self-isolation--stemmed from their mothers' emotional frigidity. We now know that autism is a brain disorder, not the result of poor parenting. But for a whole generation of women branded as cold "refrigerator mothers," the damage had already been done.

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