Autistic Children: Bodily Factors in the Use of Language

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My thanks to Mrs. Janet Bungener, Mrs. Julie Kitchener, Ms. Marina Manassei, and Mrs. Christine Porter for allowing me to refer to their clinical work.

Notes

I am grateful to the late Cathy Urwin for pointing out to me that Piaget described this same phenomenon in typically developing young children who, at a certain stage of development, use this magical way of controlling external objects and people with whom they equate themselves (Piaget, 1926).

Some of Sasha's material was discussed in a different theoretical context in Rhode, 2015.

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Notes on contributors

Maria Rhode

Maria Rhode is Emeritus Professor of Child Psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic and the University of East London, Member of the Association of Child Psychotherapists, and Honorary Associate of the British Psychoanalytical Society. She works as Honorary Consultant Child Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic, where she formerly co-convened the autism workshop and currently sees toddlers at risk of autism spectrum disorder. She has contributed many papers and book chapters on children with autism and co-edited three books (Psychotic States in Children with Margaret Rustin and Alex and Hélène Dubinsky, The Many Faces of Asperger's Syndrome with Trudy Klauber, and Invisible Boundaries: Psychosis and Autism in Children and Adolescents with Didier Houzel). She was awarded the Frances Tustin Memorial Prize in 1998.