Autism and brain types.

[Eldanen]

From: University of Bath News - Academics find that the finger of destiny points their way



“This research now suggests that lower than average testosterone levels in men lead to spatial skills that can give a man the ability to succeed in science. Other research has in the past also suggested that an unusually high level of testosterone can do the same thing by encouraging the development of the right hemisphere.

"This right brain development is at the expense of language abilities and people skills that men with a more usual level of testosterone develop and which can help them in social science subjects like psychology or education.”

Doesn't this go contrary to the most popular belief with testosterone/estrogen levels? Usually, it's said that higher testosterone levels go hand in hand with higher spatial/mathematical ability, while higher estrogen levels work well with linguistic/critical reading ability.

To quote: Finger Length Foretells Academic Performance: Study

Exposure to testosterone in the womb is said to promote development of areas of the brain often associated with spatial and mathematical skills, he said.

Perhaps the difference in ability with the male scientists doesn't come from an objective difference in testosterone levels, but a relative one? Someone explain this disparity?

Edit: Clarification:
When I mean a relative difference, I mean that the end result (higher mathematical and spatial ability) would not necessarily be created by the difference in the levels themselves, but just by the fact that they are inversely different from the norm.

[nightning]

I'll be a little skeptical of drawing conclusion from a single study with a small sample size... There've been a decision of the findings here: Analytic Skills & Finger Length

[meanlittlechimp]

Interesting article regarding inheritability of Autism in the newscientist today. Will post the whole article here since it's a paid site.


Aloof parents may produce autistic children
It's not just autistic children who view the world differently from the rest of us – it seems their parents may do so as well. Some parents of autistic children evaluate facial expressions in a strikingly similar way to people with the disorder, even though they would not be classified as autistic themselves. The finding strengthens the link between genetics and autism, and may help pinpoint the genes responsible for some of the behavioural traits associated it. Ralph Adolphs of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and his colleagues performed psychological tests on 42 parents of autistic children.

'Aloof' parents
Based on these tests, they categorised 15 of the parents as being "socially aloof", meaning that they tend not to enjoy small talk for the sake of it, and have very few close friendships involving sharing and mutual support. Both these groups of parents and the parents of 20 non-autistic "neurotypical" children were then asked to look at a series of faces and judge whether they looked happy or fearful. While people with autism often struggle to read others' emotions, all three groups of parents scored equally on the task, getting it right around 83% of the time.

However, when the team looked at how the parents were judging the faces they found that the socially aloof parents with autistic children relied heavily on looking at the mouths of the faces, rather than the eyes. "This bears a striking resemblance to what we have reported previously in individuals with autism," says Adolphs. In contrast, neurotypical people are more inclined to look at people's eyes, in order to read how they are feeling.

Mouth gazing
Previous studies have also suggested that the siblings of children with autism spend a disproportionate amount of time gazing at the mouths of the people they are interacting with – but this is the first time it has been shown in parents. "Some parents who have a child with autism process face information in a subtly, but clearly different way from other parents," says Adolphs, who is now using brain imaging to investigate whether the brains of these parents function in a different way as well. 'It definitely supports the idea that there is a genetic basis to autism," says Angelica Ronald, an autism researcher at Kings College London.

Gene search
One emerging theory is that behavioural traits such as introversion are passed down genetically, so if you have a parent who is introverted and another who is mildly obsessive, their child could be at increased risk of developing autism – although environmental factors are also likely to play a role as well. Identifying parents who display such traits, could help pin down the genes responsible for these behaviours. Ronald says the next step should be to examine parents of autistic children for other autistic traits, such as communication problems or repetitive behaviour. "Autism is made up of social difficulties, communication problems and repetitive behaviours. It would be interesting to see if the parents have any of these other traits," she says.

[Ilah]

I generally test postive on the on line aspie test, but have never had a official diagnosis.

The following is part of something I posted on one an aspie site. It was intended for people who were not familiar with Myers Briggs so it includes some basic info everyone here already know.

Notes of explanation:
aspie = person with Asperenger's, which is similiar high functioning autism
APT = aspie personality type, a person who has many characteristics in common with aspies but may not have an official diagnosis, symptoms may be less severe than aspies

The "defining" part of extrovert v. introvert is that extroverts feel
refreshed and re-energized by being around people where introverts
fell refreshed and re-energized by being alone. The amount of social
interaction an introvert can tolerate varies, but social interaction
wears them out - even if they enjoy it - and all of them NEED some
alone time. This seems to correspond to most APT. My own personal
thoughts are that sometimes you might have one or two people (long
term relationships) who do not wear you down as much as other
people. But sometimes you still need time away from them too.

Other corresponding things between introverts and APTs:

Tend to be independant thinkers (opinions often differ from the
majority, don't choose things based on what is popular/what everyone
else chooses)

Tend to dislike superficial conversation/small talk. Enjoy talking
about more indepth conversations.

Looking at it from a Myers-Briggs clasification type, I think APT
corresponds with the types "intuitive" and "thinking."

One measurement on the Myers-Briggs is intuitive v. sensing.
Introverts scoring higher on intuitive tend to get more out of their
inner world while intoverts scoring higher on sensing get more from
the world around them. Common things introvert intuitive people have
with aspies/APT: often described as being "in their own world,"
difficult to put their inner thoughts in words, can figure things
out "intuitively" but are often not able to explain to others how
they came to that conclusion. They are listed as the hardest type to
understand.

Another measure on Myers-Briggs is thinking v. feeling. People
scoring higher on thinking than feeling are logical and analytical.
They often enjoy putting things in order or keeping things in a
particular order. They are often (mis)percieved as being cold and
aloof. These are also common APT traits.

I should point out that these traits are not either/or. An intuitive
can still can till be a "sensual" person, i.e. enjoying pretty
things, good food, nice scents, etc. A thinking person still has
feelings. It is just what trait you identify with most strongly.

To sum up my thoughts: Almost all aspies and APTs are introverted,
but only a portion of introverts are aspies/APTs. If you looks at
the Myers-Briggs, you see specific personalities types that seem to
be aspie PERSONALITY types. By this I mean take out the criteria
that are not part of personality - such as poor motoer skills - and
you get a fairly good match. There are two Myers-Briggs types
depending on wether intuitive or thinking is "dominant" and I think
this could correspond well to two types of aspies.

Intuitive is stronger = artist, creative, philosopher, daydreamer,
often very spiritual
Thinking is stronger = analytical, very good at math, science,
computers, etc.

Ilah

[clueless]

If anyone here was thinking about a get together, you can forget it. Autism is a serious problem in real life and I won't tolerate your attempts to talk about something "personal" to you using autism as a euphemism to do so. I actually wonder if you have any respect for the suffering that some people have to endure in this life. I hope that someday, the tragic things that you find so amusing in the virtual, euphemistic world will actually happen to you in real life. Laughing at the misfortune of others is wrong.

[Haphazard]

For some reason I remember as far back as A Wrinkle in Time, the narrative mentioned that 'when two smart people married, the kids always ended up strange.'

This reminded me of it. Probably just folk knowledge trying to go scientific...

[Ilah]

I hope you don't think I was making fun of autism. I have been on a couple of different aspie boards and I have on line friends with Asperenger's (aspies) and/or high functioning autism. (The two are hard to tell apart.)

There is also a big difference between low function autistics, who require care or assisted living and high functioning autistic/aspies who still struggle but can often hold jobs and lead independant lives.

Some important differences: Aspies and high functioning autistics have above avarage intelligence, which helps compensate for their problems. Their symptoms are usually less severe. They can communicate with others although many may prefer writing to speaking.

Although there is a big difference between the two in terms of functioning there are still common things that apply to both. And they are all still concidered to be on the autistic spectrum by the medical community and by the aspie community. Maybe they shouldn't be, maybe they should be concidered to completely seperate things. I would prefer that they were concidered two seperate things myself, but the majority of the aspie community does not agree with me.

The higher functioning you are the greater the chance you will not be diagnosed or not diagnosed till later in life. Because of the mildness of the symptoms people will generally not be percieved as the autistic and instead may be labled weird, clumsy, geeky, socially inept, etc.

Ilah

Originally Posted by clueless

If anyone here was thinking about a get together, you can forget it. Autism is a serious problem in real life and I won't tolerate your attempts to talk about something "personal" to you using autism as a euphemism to do so. I actually wonder if you have any respect for the suffering that some people have to endure in this life. I hope that someday, the tragic things that you find so amusing in the virtual, euphemistic world will actually happen to you in real life. Laughing at the misfortune of others is wrong.

[meanlittlechimp]

Originally Posted by clueless

If anyone here was thinking about a get together, you can forget it. Autism is a serious problem in real life and I won't tolerate your attempts to talk about something "personal" to you using autism as a euphemism to do so. I actually wonder if you have any respect for the suffering that some people have to endure in this life. I hope that someday, the tragic things that you find so amusing in the virtual, euphemistic world will actually happen to you in real life. Laughing at the misfortune of others is wrong.

Woah, who was this directed at? I didn't notice anyone making fun of autism.

Anyways, first time I heard this theory - linking TV with autism, fairly compelling evidence too..

"They found that as cable television became common in California and Pennsylvania beginning around 1980, childhood autism rose more in the counties that had cable than in the counties that did not. They further found that in all the Western states, the more time toddlers spent in front of the television, the more likely they were to exhibit symptoms of autism disorders."

TV might cause autism. - By Gregg Easterbrook - Slate Magazine

[JustDave]

I've probably said this before and this post will probably get deleted, but that is one of the coolest avatars ever.

[substitute]

My daughter has Asperger's Syndrome and for the first 5 years of her life we had no TV in the house. Since we got one, we've never had cable, just the basic 5 free channels you get in the UK, which we very rarely watch. She's actually pretty sociable and enjoys socializing, just is really bad at it due to not being able to see other people's points of view. She once stood in the middle of the school playground reciting the telephone direectory and was truly mystified as to why this didn't interest anyone, for example. Since I took her out of school and started to home educate her though, she's come on in leaps and bounds, socially.

However she's been tested by a different guy to the one who gave the diagnosis, a shrink friend of mine who's into MBTI in his spare time, and he gave her a fun but very thorough test and she came out as ENTP. Chip off the old block, eh? But we think that dominant Ne might be a reason why she tends to be more flexible than the average Aspie.

I've met Simon Baron-Cohen in person (at a conference I went to with the friend I mentioned above) and though I've a great respect for his knowledge and support the work and his intentions, I don't agree with some of his theories - or at least, I think they're only applicable in a very limited context and by no means universal.

My daughter has a very strong N parent (me) and her other one was a borderline IxFP. Reading the articles linked from the OP and also others of his that I've read, I'd say that I was a 'balanced' brain, though leaning slightly more towards the systematizing. My ex was a strong systematizer; however, it's through my genes that she inherited Asperger's - my father and great paternal uncle, as well as two cousins on the same side of the family also have autistic spectrum disorders, whilst my ex's family had never heard of it.

My daughter's probably a systematizer though - I think that's what she sees in Pokemon, which has been her sole and abiding obsession for years. It's all so rigidly classified and predictable, a fairly complex and growing 'system' of characters and suchlike, all with the 'animal' tint to it and therefore also appealing to her love of animals (they're simpler than people, more predictable!).

No particular points here, just... you asked for experiences etc, there's mine