Refrigerator mothers
David E. Simpson (Director, Producer, Film editor), J. J. Hanley (Producer), Gordon Quinn (Producer, Cinematographer), Hannah Marcus (Musician), Tsuyoshi Kimoto (Cinematographer), Kartemquin Films, Independent Television Service, Fanlight Productions
From the 1950s through the early 1970s, the American medical establishment thought it had found the cause of autism: poor mothering. Doctors presumed that the bizarre behaviors of autistic children--rigid rituals, difficulty with speech, extreme self-isolation--stemmed from their mothers' emotional frigidity. We now know that autism is a brain disorder, not the result of poor parenting. But for a whole generation of women branded as cold "refrigerator mothers," the damage had already been done
Online Video, English, 2002
[Distributed by] Fanlight Productions, [Brooklyn], 2002