Psychological Theories of Childhood Autism

Abstract

The many theories of autistic behavior in young children may be classified into two large categories: those that approach the disorder from the biomedical perspective and those that approach it from the psychological perspective. The biomedical theories attribute the disorder to heritable or genetic factors, neurological malfunction or impairment, structural brain abnormalities, neurochemical influences, or neurodevelopmental pathological processes. The psychological theories attribute the disorder to parenting behaviors, inherent socio-emotional limitations, cognitive deficits, or atypical conditioning and learning in the early years of development. This chapter reviews some of the major psychological theories and discusses their key components. Our aim is to survey the major psychological theories of childhood autism. We provide critical comments along the way and elaborate at times on key aspects of the most promising theories, namely, those that conceptualize the disorder from the behavior analytic point of view. We end the chapter with a call for additional theoretical work that links the development and elaboration of autistic behavior in young children to the concepts and principles embodied in the theory and philosophy of behavior analysis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)