Reviews research relevant to the questions of whether childhood schizophrenia and infantile autism are evenly distributed across the population of the world or even across a single society, whether social selection or social causation may operate in their occurrence, and whether there is a relationship between social class and infantile autism. Studies examined include early investigations in the US and UK on the possible importance of social background and parental behavior in childhood schizophrenia; studies conducted in continental Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia; studies of Blacks and Hispanics in the US; and investigations suggesting that parental socioeconomic status (SES) may be more important than ethnicity in the development of childhood psychoses. It is concluded that evidence supports the speculation that problems of modern living, particularly the nuclearization of the family, are likely to increase the stresses experienced by the infant. (Sanua, V. D. (1981). Autism, childhood schizophrenia and culture: A critical review of the literature. Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review, 18, 165-81.)
The question is, what are the nature of these “stresses”. Social structure is rarely examined for the impact that it has upon the hormonal distribution of populations. If it is true that testosterone and estrogen levels are integral in the etiology of autism and conditions exhibiting maturational delay and acceleration, then perhaps we should explore what influences those hormone levels.
