title: The coherence of autism.
abstract: There is a growing body of opinion that we should view autism as fractionable into different, largely independent sets of clinical features. The alternative view is that autism is a coherent syndrome in which principal features of the disorder stand in intimate developmental relationship with each other. Studies of congenitally blind children offer support for the latter position and suggest that a source of coherence in autism is restriction in certain forms of perceptually dependent social experience.
authors.affiliation: University College London, UK.
authors.forename: R Peter
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Hobson
mesh_terms: D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D001766:Blindness / Q000151:congenital / Q000523:psychology; D002562:Ceremonial Behavior; D002648:Child; D003142:Communication; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D012919:Social Behavior; D012938:Social Perception; D013577:Syndrome
keywords: Autism; blindness; coherence; fractionation; identification; intersubjectivity; syndrome