In this article, the researcher Charles Nelon describes the impacts of psychosocial deprivation, common among children living in institutions, on children's development and its relationship to autism. Psychosocial deprivation, says Nelson, is "essentially a lack of caregiver stimulation and investment." Nelson and his colleagues have been studying the effects of psychosocial deprivation in Romanian children who were reared in institutions as infants. "Many of these orphans were adopted as young children and went on to better homes," says Nelson. "But up to 10 percent of these adoptees still have persistent social difficulties and repetitive behaviors — a set of features sometimes referred to as ‘quasi-autism.’" Nelson attributes autism features in these children to their early lack of social experience.
"The path to autism in Romanian orphans is likely to be different from that of other children with the condition," continues Nelson. "Whether the orphans who are diagnosed with autism even have the same condition as others with the diagnosis is debatable. Yet understanding what gives rise to autism features in children who were socially deprived as infants could offer clues to these features more broadly, and hint at interventions to ease them."