Just found an article from the Telegraph in with a letter from my Aunt, there's no date on it but it must be in the last few days of February.
A meeting of minds that may lead to Autism
Roger Highfield
The recent rise in autism may have been driven by the tendency of like-minded engineers, physicists, mathematicians and other "systemizers" to marry each other, according to a Cambridge University professor.
Around one child in every 100 - mostly males - has autism and the number of cases seems to be on the increase, though some argue that it is due to greater awareness and changes in diagnosis.
In a new study, Prof Simon Baron-Cohen believes the impaired ability of people with autism to communicate, recognise emotions and socialise is linked with the same genes that enable a person to systemize - find the laws that govern how a system works.
This is more often a male trait and present among scientists.
He has uncovered clues that suggest that when systemizers marry they have a higher risk of having children with autism. And he believes that systemizers are also more attracted to each other than one would expect by chance, due to what he calls "assortative mating".
Systemizers feel more comfortable in the company of each other rather than that of what he calls empathizers. "We have found clues in a range of studies we have conducted since 1997 that assortative mating is going on".
In the journal Archives of Diseases of Childhood this month, Prof Baron-Cohen reports various suggestive clues to link systemizing with autism. According to a survey of 1000 members of the National Autistic Society, fathers and grandfathers of children with autistic spectrum conditions are twice as likely to work in systemizing professions such as engineering.
Empathizers
- Tend to be female.
- Show the drive to identify another person's emotions and thoughts, and to respond to them with an appropriate emotion.
- Empathizers intuitively figure out how people are feeling, and how to treat people with care and sensitivity.
- Not preoccupied with patterns or repetitive events. Relaxed about details.
- Develop language rapidly. Sociable and communicative.
Systemizers
- Tend to be male.
- Possess a drive to analyse and explore a system - such as a vehicle, a computer, a maths equation, or even an army unit - to extract underlying rules that govern a system's behaviour; and the drive to construct systems.
- Intuitively figure out how things work, or what the underlying rules are.
- Repetitive behaviour, preoccupation with arranging things, obsession with detail.
- Less interested in chatting. Less sociable.
Students in the natural sciences have a higher number of relatives with autism then do students in the humanities, and mathematicians have a higher rate of autistic spectrum conditions compared with the general population.
The theory that both parents of children with autism are strong systemizers is also evident from a study that shows both mothers and fathers score above average on a questionnaire that measures autistic traits.
The parents are also faster at "visual search tasks" - in effect they have an unusually sharp eye for detail, just as their child with autism does - compared with the parents of unaffected children.
Brain scan studies of mothers and fathers of children with autism have shown that the mothers have a masculinised pattern of brain activity, again suggesting they are strong systemizers.
When all the evidence is taken together it suggests a genetic cause of autism, with both parents contributing genes that ultimately relate to a similar kind of mind: one with an affinity for thinking systematically.
Prof Baron-Cohen says the rise in autism could be driven because assortative mating is becoming easier: recent years have seen a rise in mobility, an increase in the employment prospects of systemizers - notably in the computers industry - and a rise in the numbers of women studying mathematics, engineering and other systemizing subjects at university, where they are more likely to come into contact with systemizing men.
He points out that the parents of children with autism may not have strong skills in such subjects, but that does not mean they are not strong systemizers.
The parents for example may have a remarkable memory for the names of songs in their CD collection, or for dates or telephone numbers.
He thinks the key characteristic is "exactness" in their style of thinking.
In the spectrum of conditions that count as autism, the largest groups are classic autism and Asperger syndrome. Both share features: a difficulty in developing social relationships, a difficulty in communication, the presence of unusually strong, narrow interests, and a strong adherence to routines.
They differ in that in classic autism, the person might have an IQ at any point on the scale, even in the learning disabled range, and the person invariably had a language delay as a toddler.
In Asperger syndrome, the person is always at least average in IQ, and may be well above average, and talked on time as a toddler.
rhighfield@telegraph.co.uk
I'd be really interested to hear what people think about this article. My initial reaction is serious wariness, especially about his conclusion that it must be a genetic inheritance. Also, the last couple of paragraphs appear to be spun out just to make up the copy word requirement, which is a shame.
