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Huge Survey Shows Correlation Between Autistic Traits and STEM Jobs (cam.ac.uk)

Posted by Soulskill on from the pointing-out-that-correlation-!=-causation-increases-your-score-by-5 dept.

Bruce66423 writes: A survey of more than 450,000 people in the UK has shown there is a significant correlation between a higher score on the Autism Quotient and being a scientist or engineer. AQ scores are also higher for men than for women. "On average, the male AQ score was 21.6, compared to a female score of 19.0. People work in a STEM-related job had an average AQ score of 21.9 compared to a score of 18.9 for individuals working in non-STEM jobs. This suggests autistic traits are linked to both sex and to having a ‘systems-thinking’ mind." A professor involved with the work said, "These may shed light on why we find males in the population on average have slightly more autistic traits than females do, and why fathers and grandfathers of children with autism are over-represented in STEM fields."

1 of 345 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Male privilege by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The CDC says that you are absolutely wrong. Autism is 5x more common in boys (interestingly, this is rather close to the male/female STEM ratio).

    http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html