Self Taught Syndrome?

I'm a recent(ish) hire at a tech company, I'm primarily self-taught due to not being able to afford college at this time. I was hired primarily to do entry level integration work between the software and hardware we design.

I've been getting more software related tasks recently and saw over the shoulder of a co-worker asking my boss to add a software task for me that my boss doesn't want me working on directly related software development due to a concern of "he may develop self-taught syndrome, something he already exhibits signs of". My initial guess is not coding up to generally accepted standards, however I've received minimal negative feedback on anything I've developed.

Would anyone have a better idea what they are referring to, if this is a generally held idea in the industry, etc?

My main goal is to nip any bad habits in the butt I'm not aware of and learn/do things the right way.