Bernard Rimland
Encyclopedia
Bernard Rimland, PhD
(15 November 1928 – 21 November 2006) was an American research psychologist
, writer, lecturer, and advocate for autistic children, ADHD, learning disabilities, and mental retardation
.
Based in San Diego, California
since 1940, Dr. Rimland was the founder, in 1967, and director of the Autism Research Institute
(ARI), and founder of the Autism Society of America
(ASA), in 1965. Rimland was long an internationally recognized authority on autism spectrum disorders, and was the father of a high-functioning autistic son.
, Rimland obtained his PhD in experimental psychology
and research design, from Pennsylvania State University
in 1953.
Dr. Rimland's son, Mark, was born in 1956, when the diagnosis of autism was rare. From birth, however, something was drastically wrong with Mark. Rimland had recently earned his doctorate, but was not yet familiar with the word autism. Only much later was it determined Mark's condition fell into the category of early infantile autism, rather than regressive autism
. Despite challenges, Mark has nevertheless become a talented artist.
After his son's diagnosis, Rimland set forth on a quest to understand autism and bring much needed attention to the disorder, in order to foster research into its causes and treatment. Rimland has often sparked controversy along his way.
Rimland published his book, Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implications for a Neural Theory of Behavior, in 1964. Its foreword, by Leo Kanner
, the man who first identified autism as a syndrome, gave the book credibility among professionals in the field. It was an about-turn for Kanner, the originator of the word "autism" and of the "refrigerator mother
" theory; through his observations and research, Kanner had come to believe that autism had a neurological cause—the accepted view in the medical profession today. But at the time Rimland's book was published,and for many years afterwards, the standard theory was that autism was caused by unloving 'refrigerator mothers', an unproven but widely accepted idea most famously propounded by University of Chicago
professor Bruno Bettelheim
, notably in his book The Empty Fortress: Infantile Autism and the Birth of the Self (1967), which claimed that the traumatized unloved child retreated into autism. As a professional research psychologist, Rimland was well positioned to launch the first major attack on Bettelheim's theory. Rimland's was the first authoritative voice to dispute Bettelheim's research and call into question his conclusions.
Parents from all over the United States, excited that for the first time a professional in the field did not accuse them of maltreating their autistic child, began to write to Rimland. He called a meeting in Teaneck, New Jersey, at the house of one of the families, and this small group of parents, including among others Ruth C. Sullivan
(first president of the ASA), became the nucleus that founded the Autism Society of America
.
Another one-of-a-kind database that Dr. Rimland started was the “Parent Ratings of Biomedical Interventions”. Since 1967, over 26,000 parents have completed surveys indicating the extent to which various treatments helped their children. This information is on ARI’s site to help both parents of autistic children and physicians decide on a possible course of treatment.
, tersely dismissed as "rubbish" Rimland's concern about the rise in autism diagnoses, and his assertion that vaccinations
might be among the causes. Rimland was among a minority of researchers who believe that thiomersal
(a mercury-based preservative) used in vaccines is a direct cause of autism. The United States Institute of Medicine
(IOM) in its 2004 report found that, "the body of epidemiological evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism."http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10997 The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency
(MHRA), National Health Service
(NHS), World Health Organization
(WHO), European Medicines Agency
(EMEA), Food and Drug Administration
(FDA), Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and many other national and international medical organizations have issued statements of a similar nature, finding no link between autism and thimerosal based on the evidence currently available from a variety of studies.
In her book, Children with Starving Brains, Jaquelyn McCandless, MD, calls Rimland "The grand godfather of the movement for understanding the biological treatment of autism". Rimland's book, Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implication for a Neural Theory of Behavior (1964), is credited by many with changing the prevailing view of autism
, in the field of psychiatry
, from an emotional illness -widely thought to be caused by refrigerator mothers - to the current recognition that autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder.
Rimland subsequently served as the primary technical advisor on autism for the 1988 movie Rain Man
. Mark Rimland was interviewed by Dustin Hoffman
, serving as one of several models for the character portrayed by the movie star. The movie helped establish worldwide awareness of autism, just when the prevalence of autism was first becoming apparent.
Rimland and his wife, Gloria, had recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. The couple was married by Rabbi Monroe Levens of Tifereth Israel Synagogue, which was then located in Kensington, California
.
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
(15 November 1928 – 21 November 2006) was an American research psychologist
Psychologist
Psychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...
, writer, lecturer, and advocate for autistic children, ADHD, learning disabilities, and mental retardation
Mental retardation
Mental retardation is a generalized disorder appearing before adulthood, characterized by significantly impaired cognitive functioning and deficits in two or more adaptive behaviors...
.
Based in San Diego, California
San Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...
since 1940, Dr. Rimland was the founder, in 1967, and director of the Autism Research Institute
Autism Research Institute
The Autism Research Institute , established in 1967 by Bernard Rimland, is a San Diego, California, based nonprofit that funds research and provides information on autism and autism spectrum disorders. Stephen M...
(ARI), and founder of the Autism Society of America
Autism Society of America
The Autism Society of America was founded in 1965 by Bernard Rimland, PhD, together with Ruth C. Sullivan and a small group of other parents of autistic children. Its original name was the National Society for Autistic Children; the name was changed to emphasize that children with autism grow up...
(ASA), in 1965. Rimland was long an internationally recognized authority on autism spectrum disorders, and was the father of a high-functioning autistic son.
Education and early career
After completing his undergraduate studies at San Diego State UniversitySan Diego State University
San Diego State University , founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, is the largest and oldest higher education facility in the greater San Diego area , and is part of the California State University system...
, Rimland obtained his PhD in experimental psychology
Experimental psychology
Experimental psychology is a methodological approach, rather than a subject, and encompasses varied fields within psychology. Experimental psychologists have traditionally conducted research, published articles, and taught classes on neuroscience, developmental psychology, sensation, perception,...
and research design, from Pennsylvania State University
Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University, commonly referred to as Penn State or PSU, is a public research university with campuses and facilities throughout the state of Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1855, the university has a threefold mission of teaching, research, and public service...
in 1953.
Dr. Rimland's son, Mark, was born in 1956, when the diagnosis of autism was rare. From birth, however, something was drastically wrong with Mark. Rimland had recently earned his doctorate, but was not yet familiar with the word autism. Only much later was it determined Mark's condition fell into the category of early infantile autism, rather than regressive autism
Regressive autism
Regressive autism occurs when a child appears to develop typically but then starts to lose speech and social skills, typically between the ages of 15 and 30 months, and is subsequently diagnosed with autism...
. Despite challenges, Mark has nevertheless become a talented artist.
After his son's diagnosis, Rimland set forth on a quest to understand autism and bring much needed attention to the disorder, in order to foster research into its causes and treatment. Rimland has often sparked controversy along his way.
Rimland published his book, Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implications for a Neural Theory of Behavior, in 1964. Its foreword, by Leo Kanner
Leo Kanner
Leo Kanner was a Jewish American psychiatrist and physician known for his work related to autism. Kanner's work formed the foundation of child and adolescent psychiatry in the U.S. and worldwide....
, the man who first identified autism as a syndrome, gave the book credibility among professionals in the field. It was an about-turn for Kanner, the originator of the word "autism" and of the "refrigerator mother
Refrigerator mother
The term refrigerator mother was coined around 1950 as a label for mothers of children diagnosed with autism or schizophrenia. These mothers were often blamed for their children's atypical behavior, which included rigid rituals, speech difficulty, and self-isolation.The "refrigerator mother" label...
" theory; through his observations and research, Kanner had come to believe that autism had a neurological cause—the accepted view in the medical profession today. But at the time Rimland's book was published,and for many years afterwards, the standard theory was that autism was caused by unloving 'refrigerator mothers', an unproven but widely accepted idea most famously propounded by University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
professor Bruno Bettelheim
Bruno Bettelheim
Bruno Bettelheim was an Austrian-born American child psychologist and writer. He gained an international reputation for his work on Freud, psychoanalysis, and emotionally disturbed children.-Background:...
, notably in his book The Empty Fortress: Infantile Autism and the Birth of the Self (1967), which claimed that the traumatized unloved child retreated into autism. As a professional research psychologist, Rimland was well positioned to launch the first major attack on Bettelheim's theory. Rimland's was the first authoritative voice to dispute Bettelheim's research and call into question his conclusions.
Parents from all over the United States, excited that for the first time a professional in the field did not accuse them of maltreating their autistic child, began to write to Rimland. He called a meeting in Teaneck, New Jersey, at the house of one of the families, and this small group of parents, including among others Ruth C. Sullivan
Ruth C. Sullivan
Ruth Christ Sullivan, Ph.D. , is a pioneer in the field of autism, one of the first parents to be active, an organizer and lifelong crusader for education for people with autism.In 1965, Dr. Ruth Sullivan was one of the founders, with Dr...
(first president of the ASA), became the nucleus that founded the Autism Society of America
Autism Society of America
The Autism Society of America was founded in 1965 by Bernard Rimland, PhD, together with Ruth C. Sullivan and a small group of other parents of autistic children. Its original name was the National Society for Autistic Children; the name was changed to emphasize that children with autism grow up...
.
Autism Research Institute
In 1967, Dr. Rimland established the Autism Research Institute (ARI) - the hub of a worldwide network of parents and professionals concerned with autism. ARI was founded to conduct and foster scientific research designed to improve the methods of diagnosing, treating, and preventing autism. ARI also disseminates research findings to parents and others worldwide seeking help via their * http://www.autism.com website. The ARI data bank, the world's largest, contains over 40,000 detailed case histories of autistic children from over 60 countries.Another one-of-a-kind database that Dr. Rimland started was the “Parent Ratings of Biomedical Interventions”. Since 1967, over 26,000 parents have completed surveys indicating the extent to which various treatments helped their children. This information is on ARI’s site to help both parents of autistic children and physicians decide on a possible course of treatment.
Conflicts with medical opinion
Many senior figures in medicine and psychology questioned Rimland's contributions to autism during the later period of his career. In 1995, Bennett Leventhal, a professor at the University of ChicagoUniversity of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, tersely dismissed as "rubbish" Rimland's concern about the rise in autism diagnoses, and his assertion that vaccinations
Vaccine
A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism, and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe or its toxins...
might be among the causes. Rimland was among a minority of researchers who believe that thiomersal
Thiomersal controversy
The thiomersal controversy describes claims that vaccines containing the mercury-based preservative thiomersal contribute to the development of autism and other brain development disorders...
(a mercury-based preservative) used in vaccines is a direct cause of autism. The United States Institute of Medicine
Institute of Medicine
The Institute of Medicine is a not-for-profit, non-governmental American organization founded in 1970, under the congressional charter of the National Academy of Sciences...
(IOM) in its 2004 report found that, "the body of epidemiological evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism."http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10997 The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency
Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is the UK government agency which is responsible for ensuring that medicines and medical devices work and are acceptably safe....
(MHRA), National Health Service
National Health Service
The National Health Service is the shared name of three of the four publicly funded healthcare systems in the United Kingdom. They provide a comprehensive range of health services, the vast majority of which are free at the point of use to residents of the United Kingdom...
(NHS), World Health Organization
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. Established on 7 April 1948, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health...
(WHO), European Medicines Agency
European Medicines Agency
The European Medicines Agency is a European agency for the evaluation of medicinal products. From 1995 to 2004, the European Medicines Agency was known as European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products.Roughly parallel to the U.S...
(EMEA), Food and Drug Administration
Food and Drug Administration
The Food and Drug Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments...
(FDA), Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and many other national and international medical organizations have issued statements of a similar nature, finding no link between autism and thimerosal based on the evidence currently available from a variety of studies.
In her book, Children with Starving Brains, Jaquelyn McCandless, MD, calls Rimland "The grand godfather of the movement for understanding the biological treatment of autism". Rimland's book, Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implication for a Neural Theory of Behavior (1964), is credited by many with changing the prevailing view of autism
Autism
Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs all begin before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their...
, in the field of psychiatry
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
, from an emotional illness -widely thought to be caused by refrigerator mothers - to the current recognition that autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder.
Claims of an 'autism epidemic'
Rimland was among the first autism campaigners to draw attention to increases in the number of diagnoses of autism. After correlating the presence of mercury in vaccines with the increase in autism cases, Dr. Rimland concluded that mercury is the primary culprit in the epidemic rise of autism: back in 1990, one out of ten thousand infants as compared to one out of one hundred and fifty at present (March 2007) representing an increase of 6,670%. To this day, the medical establishment still does not know the cause of autism.A brush with Hollywood
Rimland has lectured on autism and related problems throughout the world, including before thousands of professional groups, and he is the author of numerous publications. His high profile, within what was then a small community of autism activists, caught the eye of movie producers in nearby Hollywood, California.Rimland subsequently served as the primary technical advisor on autism for the 1988 movie Rain Man
Rain Man
Rain Man is a 1988 drama film written by Barry Morrow and Ronald Bass and directed by Barry Levinson. It tells the story of an abrasive and selfish yuppie, Charlie Babbitt, who discovers that his estranged father has died and bequeathed all of his multimillion-dollar estate to his other son,...
. Mark Rimland was interviewed by Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor with a career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He has been known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and vulnerable characters....
, serving as one of several models for the character portrayed by the movie star. The movie helped establish worldwide awareness of autism, just when the prevalence of autism was first becoming apparent.
Miscellany
Dr. Rimland was the editor of the Autism Research Review International, published by ARI, which covers biomedical and educational advances in autism research.Rimland and his wife, Gloria, had recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. The couple was married by Rabbi Monroe Levens of Tifereth Israel Synagogue, which was then located in Kensington, California
Kensington, California
Kensington is an unincorporated community and census-designated place located in the East Bay, part of the San Francisco Bay Area, in Contra Costa County, California, United States. The population was 5,077 at the 2010 census.- Law and government :Kensington is an unincorporated area of Contra...
.
Books
- 1964 Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implication for a Neural Theory of Behavior - written after his son, Mark, was diagnosed as autismAutismAutism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs all begin before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their...
. - 1976 Modern Therapies (with Virginia Binder, A. Binder)
- 1998 Biological Treatments for Autism and PDD (with William Shaw, Lisa Lewis, Bruce Semon)
- 2001 Tired - so Tired!: And the "Yeast Connection" (with William Crook, Cynthia Crook)
- 2003 Vaccines, Autism and Childhood Disorders: Crucial Data That Could Save Your Child's Life (with Neil Z. Miller)
- 2003 Treating Autism: Parent Stories of Hope and Success (with Stephen M. Edelson, Ph.D.)
- 2006 Recovering Autistic Children (originally published as Treating Autism) Second Edition (with Stephen M. Edelson, Ph.D.)
External links
- Autism.org - Center for the Study of Autism
- Autisme.net - 'The Autism Explosion', Bernard Rimland, PhD
- http://www.autism.com - Autism Research InstituteAutism Research InstituteThe Autism Research Institute , established in 1967 by Bernard Rimland, is a San Diego, California, based nonprofit that funds research and provides information on autism and autism spectrum disorders. Stephen M...
- Autism-Society.org - 'ASA: The Voice of Autism' (Autism Society of AmericaAutism Society of AmericaThe Autism Society of America was founded in 1965 by Bernard Rimland, PhD, together with Ruth C. Sullivan and a small group of other parents of autistic children. Its original name was the National Society for Autistic Children; the name was changed to emphasize that children with autism grow up...
homepage) - PBS.org - 'P.O.V. - Refrigerator Mothers'
- SDJewishJournal.com - 'Dr. Bernard Rimland is autism's worst enemy: Devastated by his child's diagnosis decades ago, Rimland is dedicated to destroying the developmental disorder', by Patricia Morris Buckley (2003)