Bernard Rimland

Bernard Rimland
Bernard Rimland (second from right) in front of the Autism Research Institute (ARI)
Born	(1928-11-15)November 15, 1928 Cleveland, OH, U.S.
Died	November 21, 2006(2006-11-21) (aged 78) San Diego, California, U.S.
Residence	USA
Citizenship	American
Fields	Psychology
Institutions	Autism Research Institute Autism Society of America Defeat Autism Now!
Alma mater	San Diego State University (Bachelor's) Pennsylvania State University (PhD)
Known for	Autism: researched causes, epidemic, the thiomersal theory, and biomedical treatment.
Notable awards	National Vaccine Information Center's Courage in Science Award (2002)

Bernard Rimland, PhD (November 15, 1928 – November 21, 2006) was an American research psychologist, writer, lecturer, and advocate for children with developmental disorders.

Based in San Diego, California, since 1940, 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.

After completing his undergraduate studies at San Diego State University, Rimland obtained his Ph.D. in experimental psychology and research design, from Pennsylvania State University in 1953.

Rimland's son, Mark, was born in 1956, when autism was a rare and poorly-described diagnosis. From birth, however, something was drastically wrong. 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 became 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, a common 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.