Autoantibodies to Serum Lipoproteins

couraged generalization from them. For instance, M. Levine and R. P. Olson" studied three cases, and W. M. Wolff and L. A. Morrisl2 studied seven cases. Nevertheless it is interesting to note that both of these research groups concluded that parental personality profiles generally reflected normality rather than deviancy and did not consider their findings consistent with the specific personality type of aloofness, obsessiveness, and detachment. M. Pitfield and A. Oppenheim'3 applied a parental attitude questionnaire to the mothers of Creak's psychotic children but again could not uncover evidence of maternal detachment. However, such attitudinal scales are of questionable validity.'4 One of the few research projects in which both clinical examination and an objective instrument was used, and in which a sample was reasonably large, was the Newcastle-Oxford Study.3-6 Here 26 mothers were studied with the Maudsley personality inventory. The findings proved unexceptional in relation either to introversion or to neuroticism. Finally E. Schopler and J. Loftin,'5 in their objective study of 34 parents, conclude that their findings simply reflect anxiety due to the test. Undoubtedly the stereotype drawn by Kanner and Eisenberg of parents of autistic children may be seen in individual parents, but objective research has failed to confirm this pattern as being generally valid. In the light of recent findings it is important to dispel any guilt that parents may feel about their child's condition. Distress noted in the parents is probably the result of the child's disorder. It is also helpful for parents to know that there does not appear to be a major genetic component." Furthermore, the fact that autism is genetically unrelated both to psychoses of later onset in childhood and to adult type schizophrvnia3-6 should help to dissipate anxieties about a genetic predisposition to develop schizophrenia. In these circumstances therapeutic family intervention aimed at an amelioration of parental detachment and reserve and hence a modification of the severity and course of the disorder would appear to be inconsistent with the evidence of obj active research. This does not imply that mothers under stress should go without supportive treatment, but the treatment should not carry with it the implication that it is for the benefit of the autistic child. It is also interesting to note that Kolvin and colleagues3-6 report that social isolation, when present in the mothers and families of a child with infantile psychosis, appeared to be consequent on the onset of the disorder in the child-almost as if the presence of a damaged child sometimes resulted in a family retreat from social relations. In a few cases followed up it appeared that treatment of a simple and supportive variety often resulted in a diminution of the level of isolation.