This book, which the author defines as a "working paper," is divided into three parts. In Part I, Rimland summarizes the literature on etiology and epidemiological variables in infantile autism, and attempts to make a sharp differentiation between this condition and other early profound disturbances in development such as childhood schizophrenia. In Part II, he hypothesizes that a localized lesion in the reticular system is the basic etiological factor. Part III contains a broadly ranging and frankly speculative attempt to formulate a theory of brain functioning based on neurophysiological data and the hypotheses developed earlier in the book.