Autism Seen As An Advantage

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A changed mind
A few years ago, my colleagues and I decided to compare how well autistic and non-autistic adults and children performed in two different types of intelligence test: non-verbal ones, such as Raven's Matrices, that need no verbal instructions to complete, and tests that rely on verbal instructions and answers. We found that non-autistics as a group performed consistently in both types of test — if they scored in the 50th percentile in one, they tended to score around the 50th percentile in the other. However, autistics tended to score much higher in the non-verbal test than in the verbal one (see 'Autistic intelligence') — in some cases, as many as 90 percentile points higher8.

Despite autistics' success in Raven's Matrices, I, too, used to believe that verbal tests were the best measures of intelligence. It was Dawson who opened my eyes to this 'normocentric' attitude. She asked me: if autistics excel in a task that is used to measure intelligence in non-autistics, why is this not considered a sign of intelligence in autistics?

It is now amazing to me that scientists continue to use, as they have for decades, inappropriate tests to evaluate intellectual disability among autistics,which is routinely estimated to be about 75%. Only 10% of autistics have an accompanying neurological disease that affects intelligence, such as fragile-X syndrome, which renders them more likely to have an intellectual disability.

I no longer believe that intellectual disability is intrinsic to autism. To estimate the true rate, scientists should use only those tests that require no verbal explanation. In measuring the intelligence of a person with a hearing impairment, we wouldn't hesitate to eliminate components of the test that can't be explained using sign language; why shouldn't we do the same for autistics?

Of course, autism affects other functions, such as communication, social behaviour and motor abilities. These differences can render autistics more dependent on others, and make everyday life much more difficult. None of my arguments above is intended to minimize that.

Brain regions associated with recognizing patterns tend to light up more in autistic people than the general population, perhaps explaining why those with autism often excel at visual tasks, a new study finds.

The brain regions in question are called the temporal and occipital areas, and are associated with perception and recognition of patterns.

A new review of multiple studies determined that people with an autism spectrum disorder tend to have more brain activity in these regions, and less brain activity in frontal brain regions associated with planning and decision-making.