In 1964, Bernard Rimland, a research psychologist and father of a son with Rimland, published Infantile Autism, a book that helped to turn the tide away from psychological explanations of autism and toward neurodevelopmental theories.

The book proposed a theory to explain the causes of autism. The book also synthesized research into autism and used Rimland’s neural theory, described in the book, as a theory to explain some aspects of behavior, intelligence, and abnormality.

Moreover, Infantile Autism contributed to a debate between Rimland and child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim in the 1960s about whether autism was caused by how parents raised their children or by impaired brain development. Rimland’s book convinced many autism researchers to study abnormal psychological development.