Could the rise in autism be related to the Flynn Effect?

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Over the 20th century, psychologists have noticed that people are getting better and better at taking IQ tests, and every decade or so, the they have to make the IQ tests harder so that the average score in North America stays around 100. This is known as the Flynn Effect. Most people think the Flynn Effect is caused by people becoming more test savvy because of more media exposure, more schooling, online IQ tests etc, however Richard Lynn argues that people are actually becoming biologically more intelligent because of better nutrition. He notes that better nutrion has also made us taller and that brain size has increased giving rise to more intelligence. But could the same rise in nutrition, also be making society more autistic? If nutrition is making the brain grow larger and more complex, we should be getting more intelligent, but a bigger more complex brain may also be at greater risk of malfunctioning because there's more opportunity for something to go wrong. This could be why a lot of autistics have smart relatives (engineers) even though they themselves are not smart; they inherrited the genes to have a big complex intelligent brain and enjoyed the good nutrition to reach their potential, but something went wrong, so all their intelligence got channeled in one narrow area leaving them disabled in other areas.

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Does good nutrition cause an increase in autism? No (my view).
http://www.nutrition.gov/
http://www.vitamix.com/
http:///www.wholefoods.com/
http://www.traderjoes.com/

Your poll tops out too low.

dude all the freshman at my school last year looked like 7th graders. your theory makes no sense to me.

IQ is bunk. I've taken two IQ tests, one at age ten and the other at age twenty-five, and I fail to see what my ability to repeat numbers backward has to do with my ability to solve real problems.

Also: You need a category for "I've never taken a professional IQ test." There are a significant number of people here for whom that is true.

Plus, people who've taken official IQ tests tend to be either unusually high or unusually low at much higher rates because so many people take them when somebody suspects either giftedness or mental retardation. Sooo you're gonna get a skewed spectrum. Serious selection bias there.

people could be getting more intelligent for all i know, but i don't know where the idea of better nutrition is coming from.

unless you call ubiquitous fast food, more packaged foods, corn syrup added to everything, and genetic engineering better nutrition. prior to atkins i might have believed people were eating less red meat, but now i wouldn't guess so. bacon has become the most popular person on earth.

i probably should only speak of the U.S. (where obesity rates are soaring) but globally there are probably more mcdonalds than there are kitchens.

it's not necessarily a nonsensical theory. it reminds me of this fiction book i once read, The Gemini Man, where the next evolutionary step to take for mankind was to drop emotions and pretty much become sociopaths. The book is unimportant as it was thriller fiction, and the character was ruthlessly evil, as sociopaths are, but that book stuck with me and made me think that maybe the next step is to lose emotion and become scientific machines and what not. Who knows though. I'm not very up on my evolutionary biology reading.

I highly doubt it. Emotions have some very powerful functions, including making quick decisions, protecting one's offspring and spouse, tapping into mental and physical reserves when necessary, and taking risks when necessary. Just because computers can calculate numbers very quickly doesn't mean their absolute logic is superior to the human fuzzy neural-network style. In fact, it isn't; being able to do "fuzzy" thinking, such as what's required to recognize a face or understand a metaphor, is one of the major qualities of the human brain that challenges computer programmers so much, simply because computers, with their total reliance on logic (and usually linear logic at that), aren't well-suited to the task.

I don't think that IQ tests are always reliable. There are many different types of intelligence that aren't measured in a professional IQ test.

They're not even reliable test-to-test. I distinctly remember that a few people on here have had theirs tested multiple times and gotten results that differed by as much as fifty points. Not to mention people whose sub-scales had big gaps--upwards of fifty points, again. Autistics and IQ tests just don't mix. The tests seem to be calibrated to NT-style brains, and just tend to mess up in weird ways when applied to autistic ones.

This. I am higher than the poll options listed, thusly I cannot vote in the poll.

Professional adult IQ tests like the WAIS-III don't give IQ's higher than 155

IQ tests just take a sample of all our intellectual abilities to get an idea of how well our brains can can adapt and problem solve on average. The problem with autistics is that many are extremely good in one area and extremely dumb in another area, so taking a sample of mental abilities will be much more unreliable than in neuorotypicals who tend to be more consistent in their functioning. Autistics can still be tested, but autistics need longer tests to be reliable because of the variability in their cognitive profiles.

Your poll stops at 149. Lower than 155.

You are absolutely right CockneyRebel---IQ tests aren't always reliable. As you said, there are many intelligences not measured. I was talking to an expert about IQ tests and showed him my IQ test that had been given to me when I was in elementary school (years ago). My IQ score was 111. He said that particular test was a good one, but like any, there was room for error. He said my range (considering error) could have been upwards to about 120 (not academically gifted although in high school I was in a gifted program (only for 11th graders and we met once or twice a month---not based on IQ---you were voted in by teachers).

Since I teach the gifted, we have a lot of different tests we can give students. But no test seems to be great at testing all areas of ability/ intelligence. One thing that could affect a student is the way the tests are administered. There are two main ways: Individual and Group setting. As for ability areas, it would very difficult to find a test that would measure Superior Cognitive, Specific Academic, Creative Thinking, and Visual or Performing Arts. The ACT test that is so popular for entering college tests Superior Cognitive and Specific Academic only. One popular test given to test for giftedness is the GATES which checks for Creative Thinking and Visual or Performing Arts. To get an accurate measure of a student's ability should require multiple types of tests. As CockneyRebel said, "There are many different types of intelligence that aren't measured in a professional IQ test." And not all of these tests obviously test for IQ.

These tests also come in two Instrument Types: Intelligence Tests and Achievement Tests. But I believe there should be some test that checks our Awareness IQ---that is being aware of what is happening around us and our ability to take that in and process it. Like the Simon Baron-Cohen brain types test measures (in his theory for male brain type and autism) we on the autism spectrum would usually fall low on the empathy quotient. I score a 14 out of 80 on that. On the otherhand, I (like a lot of AS/autistics) score high on the systemizing quotient (mine is a 50 out of 80). I think this could be adapted to an awareness IQ. We on the autism spectrum would usually have a low social awareness and a high systemizing awareness. Perhaps the Simon Baron-Cohen is measuring awareness.

Something else to point out is the similarities between Asperger's and Academic Giftedness. An academically gifted child is often eclectic and has specialized intense interests. They often relate better to adults. They often prefer working alone. They often focus on details. They often are seen as daydreaming. And the list goes on. Don't those things sound like Asperger's? In fact, be definition Asperger's and Academic Giftedness seem eerily similar. But, it is stated they are different things. If you have both Asperger's and Academic Giftedness you are called Twice Gifted.

Since I work with the gifted, I am fairly confident I see the difference between Asperger's and Acadmic Giftedness. A lot of it has to do with the ability to socialize (awkward versus more comfortable). I also don't believe the gifted student absorbs so much into a specialized intense interest as to isolate him/herself away from socializing as we autistics do.

So---there needs to be better testing in my opinion to measure various areas of intelligence since we come in such a wide variety of personalities. How can an IQ test measure accurately the intelligence of not only a "neurotypical" student but also an autistic student? Also, I give gifted students the Simon Baron-Cohen brain types test each year and have found that the gifted tend to score higher on the empathy quotient than we do with Asperger's. But---this is only theory and by far not an absolute.

But there are an infinite number of mental abilities. No test could possibly measure all of them. The point of an IQ test is to take a sample of one's mental abilities, not measure every single one, which would be impossible.