The paper discusses the relationship between social class and infantile autism and provides supporting evidence for L. Kanner's original findings regarding a relationship between infantile autism and high socioeconomic status. Section I contains studies which are clinical or impressionistic in nature; while Sections II and III focus on studies on the relationship between social class and infantile autism in large samples, both in foreign countries and the U.S. A fourth section considers a number of studies which have been used by the proponents who do not believe in socioeconomic differences between autistics and nonautistics. The issue of the universality of autism is also raised, and some indications are cited that infantile autism seems to be rare among minority groups. The review shows that in many studies where the genuinely autistic children were separated from those with autisticlike symptoms caused by specific organic etiologies, the intellectual superiority of the parents was confirmed. (SB)