Refrigerator Mother Meaning

Example : 1979 April 7, Helen Kohl, "The Strange Ones" Autism can be brought into our world," Montreal Gazette (Canada) (retrieved 18 Nov 2012):  It was not until 1943 that Dr. Leo Kanner, an American pschiatrist, first diagnosed the syndrome in 11 children. . . . Kanner and others once postulated that these children were the products of "refrigerator mothers," women who are overly cold and intellectual.2010, John W. Oller Jr and Stephen D. Oller, Autism: The Diagnosis, Treatment, & Etiology of the Undeniable Epidemic, ISBN 9780763752804, p. 49:  No present-day researcher takes the idea of the refrigerator mother as the cause of autism seriously.