ABSTRACT

Secondary handicaps are the additional delays imposed on the development of handicapped children due to the lack of opportunity to apply their skills. Secondary handicaps resulting from impaired social needs have a decisive effect on the early mothering of autistic infants. They associated with sensory defects – blindness and deafness of different degrees – are obvious. Children who are afflicted in this way grow up with limited experiences of causal relations and their general development is delayed as a result. The special training given to physically handicapped infants may impose additional limitations of early motor experience. Social development and communication cannot be kept separate, as all social acts involve some kind of communication. Communication is of course more than just spoken language; it refers to all messages which can be transmitted by one person and picked up in some way by another.