Social 1) Cold Parenting

Question 1

Kanner

Answer 1

Studied 11 children and their parents.

ASD children brought up in “emotional refrigerators” - cold, distant and overly intellectual parents.

Question 2

Bettleheim

Answer 2

Compared ASD children with prisoners of Nazi concentration camps.
By this he meant that the deprivation suffered in those camps was similar to the lack of maternal care to ASD children.

Question 3

Mechanism

Answer 3

When typically developing children face obstacle that they cant overcome, they withdraw for a time and receive warmth and support from parents.
An ASD child’s parent response to this withdrawal with rejection and coldness, making the child withdraw further. This repeats until the outcome is ASD.

Question 4

Rimland

Answer 4

Likely that the majority f parents of children with ASD do not match the description of refrigerator mother.
Most parents who match the refrigerator type do not have children with ASD.

Question 5

Campbell et al.

Answer 5

Estimated 93% of children with ASD have siblings who don’t have the disorder. This means the parenting style does not invariably lead to ASD.

Question 6

Confusion of Cause and Effect

Answer 6

theory is clear in stating that ta distant, unaffectionate and emotionless mother-child relationship causes ASD.
Mothers of ASD children are often stressed.
Its likely that having a child with ASD in the family is a cause, rather than effect, of the stress and depression.
Means that the refrigerator mother theory misinterprets the direction of causality.

Question 7

Alternative Explanations

Answer 7

Acceptance of theory came to an end with publication of Folstein and Rutter’s twin study.
They found strong evidence of the role of genetic factors in ASD.
Demonstrates an alternative theory was a more valid explanation of ASD as a predominantly genetic disorder rather than a psychogenic.