ABSTRACT
When seen again at the age of six, Bill began in a similar fashion. He wandered around the office more cognizant of the furnishings than of the man he was with, and he responded to the first tests like an automaton. Encouraged to do a drawing, he moved the pencil back and forth mechanically over the same area without looking at what he was doing. He did some items on intelligence tests, but acted as though in a fog. The examiner's questions went into the mist and Bill's answers floated out, but how much the boy understood of the tasks at any given time was unclear. Over a number of brief sessions, periods in which Bill was in and out of contact became more differentiated as the examiner provided him with candy and had a stuffed animal the boy liked ask some test questions. Yet even when Bill was most engaged, social interaction was limited. For the most part, he acted as if his companion were a distant, impersonal, vaguely sensed inquisitor.
