The young child with autism: a review of Ángel Rivière’s vision about the early development of autism ( El niño pequeño con autismo: una revisión de la visión de Ángel Rivière sobre el desarrollo temprano del autismo )

Abstract

During the last decades of the twentieth century, Ángel Rivière was the top reference in Spain in the study of the development of autism. In this article, we review his contributions and critically analyse his proposal regarding the developmental course of the disorder. To this end, we have gathered the research accumulated over the last two decades, focusing primarily on the results from prospective longitudinal studies with siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who also develop the disorder.