Intelligence and personality variables of parents of autistic children

Intelligence, occupation, and education levels of both parents, as well as personality characteristics of mothers, the primary nurturant adults, were investigated as related to early infantile autism. Our sample consisted of 50 sets of parents of disturbed children, 15 whose children had met Rimland 's stringent criteria for autism, 24 whose children, though not having met these criteria, had been diagnosed clinically as autistic, and 11 sets whose severely disturbed children were never diagnosed autistic. All parents were tested for intelligence. In addition, mothers' personality was tested via Human Figure Drawings and Eysenck's Personality Inventory. Rimland 's E-2 questionnaire was generally filled out by mothers. Results indicated that fathers of autists , but not mothers, were of significantly above-average intelligence. Mothers were significantly more neurotic on Eysenck's scale than mothers of disturbed nonautistic children, and significantly more introverted than his normative sample. Finally, there was a significant correlation between neuroticism of mothers and children's autism.