Premiere Date: July 16, 2002
Synopsis
A mid-century medical nightmare is revealed in David E. Simpson, J.J. Hanley and Gordon Quinn’s Refrigerator Mothers. Autism is one of today's fastest growing disorders, affecting 1 in 500 people. It is now known to be a neurological condition, but from the 1950’s through the 1970’s the medical establishment mistakenly believed it had found the root cause of the disorder: poor mothering. Doctors presumed that the often obsessive behaviors of autistic children—rigid rituals, speech difficulty, self-isolation—stemmed from their mothers' emotional frigidity. Refrigerator Mothers explores the traumatic legacy of blame, guilt and self-doubt suffered by a generation of women who were branded "refrigerator mothers."
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New Data on Autism Rates in United States
ABC News reports today that "autism rates may have doubled since 2003." According to ABC's World News Tonight program:
The article goes on to explain that parental reporting of autism diagnoses were not investigated, so the survey should not be received as an "official" estimate, according to one doctor quoted in the article.
by Theresa Riley
October 7, 2009, 1:11 PM