Scientific Brain Linked to Autism

squoozer writes "The BBC is reporting that a leading scientist in area of Developmental Psychopathology, Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, is indicating that there is good chance that there is a scientific basis to the observed phenomenon that children with highly analytical parents are more likely to be autistic. He believes the genes which make someone analytical may also impair their social and communication skills. A weakness in these areas is the key characteristic of autism."

Comments

pwn3d

[mfh]

He believes the genes which make someone analytical may also impair their social and communication skills.

Genetics thrives on diversity and buckles under similarities; look at incestuous offspring and you'll see that diversity is the core requirement for better results.

Most of the geekiest people here at Slashdot lack the necessary tools to hold a decent conversation; if two slashdotters marry and produce offspring, the result would be dangerous to society!

Successful geeks have really hot wives (with possibly no intellect whatsoever) -- so perhaps science accounts for success and rewards success and punishes failure?

The point being -- if you have a really smart wife, you must be stupid or unsuccessful because that woman will own your ass.

Re:pwn3d

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

if two slashdotters marry and produce offspring, the result would be dangerous to society!

Such an event would probably cause a rift in space time, either that or result in really ugly kids.

Re:pwn3d

[mfh]

And you smoke what flavor of crack now?

Seriously.

I was mostly joking around, but on another note -- crack comes in flavours now???

Re:pwn3d

[op12]

Most of the geekiest people here at Slashdot lack the necessary tools to hold a decent conversation; if two slashdotters marry and produce offspring, the result would be dangerous to society!

This effect is now known as Slashdautism.

Re:pwn3d

[JourneyExpertApe]

Don't worry, it won't happen until they perfect male pregnancy.

I'm sorry ma'am...

[faloi]

But your child is an engineer.

I analyzed the article

[Anonymous Coward]

but I can't communicate my thoughts.

Evolution

[dl107227]

Is this an evolutionary restraint on nerds breeding?

Re:Evolution

[murderlegendre]

This is more accurately a social restraint on nerds breeding. I've never seen any information to suggest that there is a lower rate of fertility among autistic / aspergers individuals, or even common nerds.

Over the large span of human evolution, characteristics such as physical strength, size, agression and so forth had much more to do with the ability of an individual to procreate, as opposed to the ability to smooth-talk a member of the opposite sex.

Our modern social conventions are obviously much 'nicer', but as for the positive / negative consequences for our gene pool, only time will tell.

Re:Evolution

[Fordiman]

They linked autism to very specific skills: math and science.

The point is that a balance is needed. Slashdotters: find yourself an artsy chick to get down with; one who's pretty smart and asthetically pleasing. Add a little creativity to them logical sperm you've been carrying around.

Re:Evolution

[E 99]

The point is that a balance is needed. Slashdotters: find yourself an artsy chick to get down with; one who's pretty smart and asthetically pleasing. Add a little creativity to them logical sperm you've been carrying around.

But try to avoid the phrase "asthetically pleasing" when complimenting her.

Re:Evolution

[George Tirebuyer]

Early human tool development stayed stagnant for an amazingly long time. Could it be that the same genes that cause autism today also spawned technological innovations like Clovis points. The genes may have been a mutation so rare that until human populations increased sufficiently it would be missing entirely for generations. Perhaps the rise of civilization itself is the result of the genes remaining present in the populations in Sumeria, the Indus Valley, and China which simultaneously (compared to the rest of human history) developed.

Re:Evolution

[E 99]

Again the "you can't have it all" fallacy? Even if it's impossible with today's genes to be both brilliant, handsome and socially capable (which I doubt), it's not at all impossible that, over time, genes will mutate and spread so that one can be all of these.

It's not a fallacy, it's an inevitability. The things you mention, intelligence, good looks, and social skills, can only be meaningfully measured in comparison with the societal norms. To quantify, I would throw out that the terms brilliant, handsome and socially capable, are applied to say, those in the 98th or 99th percentile of those categories. Regardless of how humanity evolves in the future, the likelihood of the same person being in the high percentile in all three is necessarilly extremely low (myself being the obvious exception :-)). Maybe some future society is full of nothing but beautiful geniuses, relative to our standards. Or maybe we're that society relative to some pre-historic version of ourselves. It doesn't really matter, as people are judged by the standards of their own societies, which will always have a high end and a low end in any given measure.

Re:Evolution

[Citizen of Earth]

But try to avoid the phrase "asthetically pleasing" when complimenting her.

Use phrases more like "Pardon me, female, will you marry me?"

old news....

[scenestar]

There used to be reports of higher rates of Autist kids in the region around silicon valley back during the dotcom boom.

Re:old news....

[gEvil (beta)]

I remember reading this article in Wired a number of years ago (I would guess probably around December 2001 from the date on it). Interesting read, especially if you're curious about autism and Asperger's.

Re:old news....

[cvd6262]

There used to be reports of higher rates of Autist kids in the region around silicon valley back during the dotcom boom.

But how much of that was attributed to the ground water pollution from fiascos like Fairchild?

For those who weren't there, there were many companies back in the early eighties that were caught dumping chemicals on their site. Fairchild's was on Bernal Road. The plant was shut down, but the building stood vacant until about five years ago when the site was developed into an Albertson's strip mall.

Here's an article: http://www.elandar.com/toxics/stories/neighborhood .html

"The Fairchild Semiconductor manufacturing plant in South San Jose had been dumping industrial solvents in a leaky underground tank for about four years before some grounds workers noticed some rust colored dirt. They asked their boss about it, and a little while later Fairchild mentioned the leak to the Great Oaks Water Company, just in case there was a problem.

There was a problem.

The tank had leaked 58,000 gallons of 1,1,1 trichloroethane (TCA), a chemical known for damaging the liver, circulatory system, and nervous system. Just two thousand feet away, a well providing water to the surrounding neighborhood had twenty times the acceptable concentrations of TCA.
Lorraine Ross had lived near the Fairchild plant in South San Jose for six years and her youngest child was struggling with multiple congenital heart defects. There was talk that something was wrong - on her block alone there were four children with birth defects, two miscarriages, and one stillbirth."

Fascinating fact

[Geeky]

Professor Baron Cohen is also the cousin of Sascha Baron Cohen, AKA. Ali G.

Re:Fascinating fact

[QuantumFTL]

Professor Baron Cohen is also the cousin of Sascha Baron Cohen, AKA. Ali G.

Actually according to this article, you are correct.

Wired article a few years back

[Andrew Lenahan]

This reminds me of a really good article in Wired from maybe 2002 or so, about how autism rates were skyrocketing in Silicon Valley, far too much to be just coinidence, better diagnosis, etc.

Anyone else remember it? It doesn't seem to be on their website (tried searching "autism" and "autistic"). It came with a quiz and everything. Anyone? Anyone?

Re:Wired article a few years back

[rebill]

It was late 2001, google to the rescue.

Re:Wired article a few years back

[Autistic]

There are a variety of ideas around the causes of Autism. Some are genetic, some are environmental. Most likely it is a combination of them.

Autism is a spectrum disorder. That means it has a wide variety of symptoms and conditions. It means that people classified as "autistic" can be anywhere from mildly to sevearly affected. The big thing to keep in mind is that they are not all the same, probably not even similar in some cases. It is a wide variety of conditions captured in one term: Autism. The most common symptom between them is childhood development delays and weakness in language and social development.

There are reports that Autism increased in the 90's due to the use of Mercury in childhood vaccines. The vaccine preservative in question was discontinued in the US a few years ago, but is still in use in other parts of the world.

The combined result is likely something like:
1. Some genetic combinations can cause autistic trates immediately.
2. Some genetic combinations can cause latent autistic tendencies that must be activated by external force, like mild metal contamination (mercury, lead, other heavy metals).
3. Some genetic combinations are not succeptable to autistic trates. However, extreme contamination can still cause developmental damage.

How these different traits manifest themselves may depend on both the genetic condition, and the severity of the contamination.

Kim Peek & NASA

[eldavojohn]

A while back, NASA conducted a fifteen year anniversary study on the savant known as Kim Peek. Peek was born with a strange brain deformity known as macrocephaly which results in the two hemispheres of the brain being linked due to a pocket of water at the base of the brain.

Now, there has been a lot of speculation about how neurons work and what makes someone autistic. I once had a lengthy conversation with James Olds of George Mason's Krasnow Institute and asked him about Peek. Olds explained to me that it's very mysterious how savants develop. I asked him if Peek had an abnormally large cortex but he dismissed this, citing that elephants are not geniuses. He also gave me an anecdotal story of a Harvard football player that injured his shoulder blade as the star quarter back. When they x-rayed him, they also found out that his head was mostly filled with water and the result was a severe lack of brain tissue. However, he was a 4.0 grade point average student. I asked Dr. Olds if Peek's neurons might be more densely populated but he also dismissed this saying that neurons are huge on nutrient consumption and if they grow too closely together, they will kill each other.

Anyone care to take a stab at this? Can anyone speculate on this?

Re:Kim Peek & NASA

[sgstair]

When they x-rayed him, they also found out that his head was mostly filled with water and the result was a severe lack of brain tissue. However, he was a 4.0 grade point average student.

Well obviously he developed a form of organic water-cooling. This probably allowed him to overclock his brain to much higher speeds than those available by conventional cooling methods!
-Stephen :)

Well....

[Otter]

1) There's nothing new here. This seems to be a review of both theories and data that have already been linked here.

2) I was about to joke about this, but it appears that the Professor actually is the cousin of Sacha "Ali G" Baron Cohen.

Yup. We're still cavemen.

[ScentCone]

Smarty-pants couples (of the truly sharp, science-minded variety) having kids is only recently useful (or even likely), in the primate-history scheme of things. Just shows that it takes natural selection a while to catch up with the fact that we're not very far removed from small, pack-like groups living hand to mouth in primitive, hostile circumstances and not living much past 30 years old. Wait... that sounds like my neighborhood!

That being said, a close friend is an occupational therapist with a lot of experience in helping out kids experiencing the full spectrum of autistic characteristics. She's indicated that a somewhat unscientific review of those kids' parents (hundreds of which she's met and gotten to know) would completely resonate with the findings mentioned in the article. She and her husband, both sharp, analytical people, just gave birth - and not without some trepidation. Just in case, they watched re-runs of "Pimp My Ride" before conceiving.

Makes sense to me...

[Two99Point80]

Being autistic, for me, means having to analyze social situations and interactions on-the-fly. Emulating intuition, I suppose. But having to be analytical also means getting to be analytical, looking beneath the surface to gain understanding of what's going on and why. Tools to achieve this will vary depending on one's ability to process complex material, but having a sensible explanation makes it much easier for me to be cooperative, appropriately social, and so forth.

This is a lot of work, but IME is well worth it. See the conference papers at my website for more on one person's experience of autism...

'Social skills'

[0123456]

I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here. As far as I can see, it's basically lying and bullshitting, which surely can't be hard for any smart person to learn? I'm sure most of us are pretty successful at bullshitting our bosses, if nothing else.

I think what really upsets the average person is not that 'geeks' don't have 'social skills', but that they just can't be bothered to bullshit with someone who has little to nothing in common with them. Why bother? What's the point in spending an evening talking about football scores when you could be doing something constructive and interesting instead? I don't get it.

Re:'Social skills'

[SeekerDarksteel]

It is far more than lying and bullshitting. In a social situation, most people can talk naturally. They simply say what comes to mind. For someone with autism, they have little to no intuation. They literally have no concept of what to say or do. If it is severe enough, the only way they can perform in social situations is to observe how others act and react and mimic them when they are in similar situations. This is much more analytical than intuitive to do. If they can't choose a reaction they can't create one on the fly and will just freeze and say very little ("ah, i see") or nothing at all.

They also generally have a difficult time understanding and picking up on more subtle forms of communication. They only hear the words. They don't hear the emotion or inflection or notice the facial expressions, and they have a difficult time reading (or listening as it were) between the lines. Furthermore, they have a difficult time extrapolating the thoughts and feelings of another person. They can't "put themselves in the other person's shoes." Basically, if something isn't said, it doesn't exist to them. That is a crippling disadvantage in social situations.

Re:'Social skills'

[radtea]

They also generally have a difficult time understanding and picking up on more subtle forms of communication. They only hear the words. They don't hear the emotion or inflection or notice the facial expressions, and they have a difficult time reading (or listening as it were) between the lines. Furthermore, they have a difficult time extrapolating the thoughts and feelings of another person. They can't "put themselves in the other person's shoes." Basically, if something isn't said, it doesn't exist to them. That is a crippling disadvantage in social situations.

Normal people communicate in the opposite way: they hear the emotional cues, inflections and facial expressions very clearly, but have a difficult time with the literal content of the communication. This is why so many people aren't able to grasp the logical consequences of anything that is said, and why so many geeks feel that they are not listened to in business meetings and other non-technical discussions. What we say is encoded in the literal meaning of the words we speak, not the non-verbal cues, and normals are logically tone-deaf in the same way we are emotionally tone-deaf.

I vividly recall telling a former employer that I'd completed a major contract for a very happy client, and that the revenues would keep the company afloat for the rest of the year (we would otherwise have been out of business.) He said, "Yeah, that's good" and then moved on to the next thing, which was the "great job" being done by a charismatic under-achiever who was running a year behind on an eight-month contract and whose inability to do his job was the reason why the company was just about broke. My information didn't have the right emotional cues packaged with it--it was just a factual report of a successfully completed major contract.

In contrast, the only thing the charismatic under-achiever had going for him was a mastery of the non-verbal, emotional aspects of communication. He made people feel good about themselves when he dealt with them.. He would make a great salesperson, but as someone who actually had to deliver working code he was a danger to himself and everyone around him.

He understood that the fundamental purpose of any human interaction is to control how the other person feels. If you can do that, then anything is possible and you don't actually have to have any skills, because people will want you around and will ignore all but the most blatant failures (and sometimes even those, for a while). We are extremely fortunate to live in a society where a small amount of attention is paid to literal content--this is a rare circumstance in human history, and if we aren't careful it will be a short-lived one.

I tend to believe the converse

[foreverdisillusioned]

I think that people without analytical genes lack the ability to communicate and socialize effectively or even sanely--I mean hell, just look at the world around you. The only reason why we analytical types have a problem with these things is because we are in the minority.

If the majority of the population were like us, it would be the nonanalytical, impulsive, controled-by-their-emotions people that would be viewed as antisocial.

Stop the presses!

[murderlegendre]

I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.

Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you our new Slashdot motto.

Pertinent question

[why-is-it]

Professor Baron Cohen is also the cousin of Sascha Baron Cohen, AKA. Ali G.

Autism - is it good, or is it whack?

I have always suspected it myself

[erroneus]

It's refreshing to hear that what I have suspected now has a little more weight... that there is a connection between those who are more actively analytical and autism. That said, to be an idiot-savant is quite rare, where most autistic forms make a person mostly or completely incapable of unassisted living with nothing else that would otherwise be interesting or novel about them. (Is that too insensitive a way to put it?)

In any case, like so many other slashdotters, I suspect my analytical disconnection (my own handicap in it's own way) has always been a hinderance in terms of social skills and adaptation. I have learned, however, that I can compensate to a degree (though not completely by any stretch) by reaching out to the more emotional part of myself and allow it to do some of the thinking for me. This results in at least a mildly child-like acclimation, but I believe it's a start for most as I have found myself growing quite a bit through such exercises. As for the rest of the balance, I have found that learning how to transmit the impression of confidence, competence and wisdom, while trying not to appear arrogant and superior, makes up for anything else. I have found that most people are really very shallow and don't require much illusion to be convinced... just dress the dress, walk the walk, talk the talk and the people are believers.

Easier said than done, of course -- it takes a lot of practice and a great many episodes in life where you closely identify with Data from ST:TNG.

Dumb Spouses

[Brownstar]

This is just more proof that I should pick the Hot dumb Cheerleader type for a wife. Honestly, it is for the kid's benefit.

Re:Huh?

[smittyoneeach]

This looks like as good a place as any to mention the ecological fallacy.

The term comes from a 1950 paper by William Robinson. For each of the 48 states in the US as of the 1930 census, he computed the literacy rate and the proportion of the population born outside the US. He showed that these two figures were associated with a positive correlation of 0.53 -- in other words, the greater the proportion of immigrants in a state, the higher its average literacy. However, when individuals are considered, the correlation was 0.11 -- immigrants were on average less literate than native citizens. Robinson showed that the positive correlation at the level of state populations was because immigrants tended to settle in states where the native population was more literate. He cautioned against deducing conclusions about individuals on the basis of population-level, or "ecological" data.

In other words, it can be helpful and interesting to scramble up some statistics on a question for a study omelette, but we have certainly destroyed some information in the process. Ex post facto attempts to opine about the original materials will leave us with egg on the face.
Elsewhere on Wikipedia, Einstein is on record for doubting whether the Almighty throws dice with the universe. Allow me to second that from the standpoint of refusing to fret. Do what you consider Destiny would have you do with respect to your reproduction; rejoice in any outcome.

Re:Finally!

[Ignignot]

While the article does say that people with highly analytical brains tend to have more Autistic children, it does not say that people with poor social skills tend to have highly analytical brains. I think it is a common fallacy around here that not knowing how to interact with other people well is some kind of badge proving how smart they are. Or to put it the slashdot way, even if you have a really fast Athlon 64 system, if you are connecting to the world with a dialup you aren't going to be able to play an online FPS well.

Wrong Line of Research

[randall_burns]

Here's the basic problem:
at this point, there is no reliable _physical_ test for autism.

All diagnosis of autism has to be done using behavioral analysis--and the criteria very greatly accross legal jurisdictions(i.e. what is "autistic" in california may not be in Wyoming).

The genetic line of reasoning is also rather questionable. There are clearly genetic risk factors(about 90% of autistic are type A blood type and male for example)--however the percentage of Type A kids that are autistic varies a _lot_ in various areas. Even among identical twins, raised together, about 5% of those autistics have a twin that isn't that may go down further if you change the line to explude milder lines of autism)--and there are lines of research that claim there are risk factors that aren't genetic that all twins would share.

What I think we need most urgently here:
a good, biological test that can sort out autistic from non-autistic kids reliably. The closest thing I've seen to this is the work of V.K. Singh at Utah State and Hugh Fudenberg(formerly of UCSF).

I expect we are seeing several different viral and environmental causes of autism spectrum disorders. There may genetic susceptability--just like populations differ in how much they are impacted by various infectious diseases. However claiming that stuff like assortive mating and genetics is causing autism just isn't good scientific method.

'Social skills' can be 'learned'

[woodsrunner]

I grew up before the main clinical description of autism was published, roughly 1984. This was lucky, since instead of being pigeonholed I just baffled the psychiatrists who the school had evaluate me. One example from sixth grade, the psychiatrist said I got the question wrong when asked why oil floated on top of water: I answered with a fairly complex explaination of the molecular make up (including diagrams) and why they can't mix. The answer written in the book was because oil is lighter. So I got it wrong.

My mother was baffled by me, too, but never quit on me. She worked hard to socialize me. She'd wake me up to watch SNL and Monty Python. I learned to tell jokes and understand humor. She exposed me to history, art and religion.

As I grew older I worked to socialize myself. I studied literature and learned how to read and write. I worked with animals and competed in sports (geek sports that required routine, discipline and long times spent alone training).

Still this didn't fully prepare me for the big world and I fell into the geek downward spiral... long periods of coding and disregard for personal hygine...

I could see it wasn't working and went into a concerted effort to break the cycle. I studied how people dressed and made an effort to be more social by going to a coffee shop regularly where the staff began to know me since I always ordered the same drink. But I also worked on learning to talk to people by studying interviews on the radio by Michael Enright, Terry Gross... My computer science teachers taught me a great deal too, one of the focuses of the course work was preparing geeks to interact with the public and the teachers were brilliant at bring us out of our shells. I am forever indebted.

Right now, a good friend of mine is hating his cube life and I am encouraging him to pursue work with autistic children since he enjoys his volunteer work much more than his job. I tell him that it can be done, people can be socialized. It just takes work.

And yes, there are people who are beyond hope, but most of these kids being diagnosed are within range of treatment. It just takes time and dedication to set them on the route. Once taught how to work at it, their innate need for repetition will carry them along.