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Beate Hermelin

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders

  • 359 Accesses

Name and Degrees

Beate Hermelin, BA, PhD

Major Appointments (Institution, Location, Dates)

Medical Research Council, London, ca 1960–ca 1985.

Major Honors and Awards

Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal

Landmark Clinical, Scientific, and Professional Contributions

Beate Hermelin was a strikingly original experimental psychologist with an unconventional career and unconventional thinking. It is impossible to talk of her work without also talking of the work of Neil O’Connor, as almost all her publications include both names. Hermelin and O’Connor conducted a series of groundbreaking experimental studies, which tried to explain and interpret the mind of the autistic child. This work, carried out during the 1960s, culminated in a monograph published in 1970. They were the first to systematically ask questions about the cognitive abilities of severely intellectually impaired children, who had previously been considered untestable and ineducable. In their ingeniously and elegantly...

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References and Readings

  • Hermelin, B. (2001). Bright splinters of the mind. A personal story of research with autistic savants. London: Jessica Kingsley.

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  • Hermelin, B., & O’Connor, N. (1965). Visual imperception in psychotic children. British Journal of Psychology, 56(4), 455–460.

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  • Hermelin, B., & O’Connor, N. (1968). Measures of the occipital alpha rhythm in normal, subnormal and autistic children. British Journal of Psychiatry, 114, 603–610.

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  • Hermelin, B., & O’Connor, N. (1970). Psychological experiments with autistic children. Oxford: Pergamon.

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  • Hermelin, B., & O’Connor, N. (1975). The recall of digits by normal, deaf and autistic children. British Journal of Psychology, 66, 203–209.

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  • Hermelin, B., & O’Connor, N. (1986). Idiot savant calendrical calculators: Rules and regularities. Psychological Medicine, 16, 885–893.

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  • Hermelin, B., & O’Connor, N. (1990a). Art and accuracy: The drawing ability of idiot-savants. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 31, 217–228.

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  • Hermelin, B., & O’Connor, N. (1990b). Factors and primes: A specific numerical ability. Psychological Medicine, 20, 163–169.

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  • O’Connor, N., & Hermelin, B. (1963). Speech and thought in severe subnormality. Oxford: Pergamon.

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  • O’Connor, N., & Hermelin, B. (1967). The selective visual attention of psychotic children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 8, 167–179.

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  • O’Connor, N., & Hermelin, B. (1978). Seeing and hearing and space and time. Oxford: Pergamon.

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  • O’Connor, N., & Hermelin, B. (1988). Low intelligence and special abilities. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 29, 391–396.

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  • O’Connor, N., & Hermelin, B. (1989). The memory structure of autistic idiot-savant mnemonists. British Journal of Psychology, 80, 97–111.

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  • O’Connor, N., & Hermelin, B. (1994). Two autistic savant readers. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 24, 501–515.

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Sample References

  • American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual (4th ed., Text Rev.). Washington, DC: APA Press.

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  • Bachevalier, J. (1996). Brief report: Medical temporal love and autism: A putative animal model in primates. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 26(2), 217–220.

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  • Howlin, P. (2005). Outcomes in autism spectrum disorders. In F. R. Volkmar, A. Klin, R. Paul, & D. J. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of autism and pervasive developmental disorders (Vol. I, pp. 640–649). Hoboken: Wiley.

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  • Kanner, L. (1943). Autistic disturbances of affective contact. Nervous Child, 2, 217–250.

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  • Mesibov, G. B., Shea, V., & Schopler, E. (2004). The TEACCH approach to autism spectrum disorders. New York: Springer.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Biosciences, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience UCL, London, UK

    Uta Frith

Authors
  1. Uta Frith
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Uta Frith .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Yale Child Study Center, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

    Fred R. Volkmar

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Frith, U. (2017). Beate Hermelin. In: Volkmar, F. (eds) Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6435-8_102166-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6435-8_102166-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-6435-8

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