"Refrigerator Mother"

The term "Refrigerator Mother" came into being during the 1950's and was a reference to mother's with autistic or schizophrenic children. Mothers, during that time period, were solely blamed for their child's atypical behavior as professionals believed then that a "frigid" mother could cause a child's autism. As you could clearly imagine, these mothers suffered from blame, guilt, and self-doubt until the 80's and 90's when autism was more well known and researched. During that time frame families were urged to institute their children since there would be no hope for a normal child in their lifetime.

In 1943 autism was discovered by a man named William Kanner (Kanner's Syndrome was named after him which is low spectrum autism) when he began to notice lack of social and emotional connections between children with autism and their parents. He thus blamed this lack of warmth on the parents label the child's problem as a part of their doing. The mother's were especially saddled with the blame of not responding with warmth and understanding since at that time period father's were not supposed to "step down" to a child's level to indulge in "frivolous play". Kanner himself wrote this about his findings concerning autistic children, "the beginning to parental coldness, obsessiveness, and a mechanical type of attention to material needs only.... They were left neatly in refrigerators which did not defrost." He also commented, in an interview, that parents of autistic children as "just happening to defrost enough to produce a child." By writing this information, Mr. Kanner had done the parents of autistic children, and the children themselves, a great disservice. However, medical technology and "know-how" of that time period did not help him to create another explanation either.

With today's great medical advances and technology we have discovered that Autism has basis in genetics, but no one really knows what gene or the make up due to the complexity of the genes themselves. Some scientists speculate that there may be one gene mutation that causes major effects, or mini mutated genes coinciding with normal genes that cause autism. Mutations can affect development as early as 8 weeks prenatal, but do NOT exclude effects the environment may have or other outside causes (such as vaccines, or other metals). Psychiatrists, theorists, and parents do know now that maternal warmth, praise, and relationship quality do effect the autistic child's growth, however it does not in any way cause the disorder of autism. Parents are strongly encouraged to work with their children to make new breakthroughs everyday, and more progress.