The paper dwells on topical issues related to autism spectrum pervasive disorders. Autism, in all its manifestations, may be defined as a psychosocial malfunction, and at individual level the autistic person is in disharmony with the very core of his/her being. The theoretical explanatory models related to autism are: the classical psychological models defined in the 1980's (Theory of Mind, Theory of Executive Function, Theory of Central Coherence) and topical theories of the 1990's (Hobson's Emotional Theory, Extreme Male Brain Theory, Neuronal systems determining social conduct, Implicit Learning Theory, Mirror Neuron Theory, Prominent Scenery Theory). The classical models and topical theories on autism form the grounds of later research in the extremely complex field of child autism.