INFANTILE AUTISM: The Syndrome and its Implications fo a Neural Theory of Behaviour

London: Methuen, (1964). 8 1/2" x 5 3/4." 282pp. Plain, full purple cloth over boards. Gilt stamped title lettering to spine. In original illustrated dust jacket. Unclipped (36s net). Jacket lightly edgeworn with some light discolor staining to rear panel. Cloth bright and clean though with a faint crease running down spine. Text unmarked and with Experimental Form 1 questionarre present and complete.

A scarce UK first of Bernard Rimland's landmark work on autism with the Diagnostic Check List for Behavior-Disturbed Children (Form E-1) occupying pp.221-236 intact, complete, and unmarked. The father of an autistic son and psychologist by training, Rimland sought to crack the guarded medical establisment and diseminate the exceedingly narrow research being done on infantile autism in the early 1960's. He researched and wrote the book independently, defying the prevailing science of the time which blamed the disorder chiefly on uncaring parents. His manuscript was picked up for publication by Appleton Croft in The U.S. in the same year as this Methuen edition.

The creation and inclusion of the Form E-1 checklist, which many parents simply tore out of the book and mailed to him for evaluation, brought him reams of correspondence from parents with undiagnosed autistic children and the book was the catalyst for a lifetime of autism advocacy leadership which included a prominent consulting role with Dustin Hoffman (whose character Raymond Babbitt was largely based on Rimland's own son, Mark) on the 1988 film RAINMAN.