Being Born Autistic and the Forming of the Interpersonal World

ABSTRACT

Early Autism is presented as a dynamic disorder of early infancy, marked by disruption to the sensory-motor capacity for making affective contact and later, the development of an atypical social communicative style – making the child incomprehensible to others. Drawing on our own group – and others’ research – we review how some core features of early autism unfold in early development, focusing on: 1) preferential attention for objects over people which affects the development of an infant’s intersubjectivity and paves the way for restricted interests; 2) reduced motor variability which results in increased repetitive movements of hands and fingers, hindering their use for affective communication; 3) modification of parent–child interaction style as an early sign – and potential modifier – of the atypical formation of the interpersonal world of the autistic infant.

KEYWORDS:

• Autism
• motor development
• parent-infant interaction
• vitality forms
• language

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Corballis (1999) has suggested that social communicative gestures evolved with the emergence of the standing position which freed the hands and for millions of years, until the development of language in homo sapiens, the almost exclusive use of hands for gestures limited their use as a work tool because they were using them primarily to communicate. Thus, the utilization of hands to communicate with others replicates in infants what unfolded phylogenetically over the course of human development.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Filippo Muratori

Prof. Filippo Muratori, M.D., is an Associate Professor of Child Neuropsychiatry at University of Pisa, Director of the Developmental Psychiatry Unit at the Department of Developmental Neuroscience, IRCCS Stella Maris - Scientific Institute (Pisa – Italy).

Fabio Apicella

Dr. Fabio Apicella, Ph.D., is a Psychologist and Researcher at the Department of Developmental Neuroscience, IRCCS Stella Maris - Scientific Institute (Pisa – Italy).