10-07-2007, 03:40 PM
.... That there ARE positives to autism. Why this is largely ignored, I don't know.
Anyway, I thought I would share something I found on the talk page for Wikipedia's Asperger's entry. The formatting might be a little wonky, but it's worth reading through it anyway.
The talk page is here and has links to all of the studies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Asperger_syndrome
Anyway, I thought I would share something I found on the talk page for Wikipedia's Asperger's entry. The formatting might be a little wonky, but it's worth reading through it anyway.
The talk page is here and has links to all of the studies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Asperger_syndrome
Quote:
I'm going to use this section to collect sources - primary and secondary, for consideration. Plz open up a new section for discussion, so that this can remain a simple list. These won't be in any particular order.
memory : Beversdorf DQ, Smith BW, Crucian GP, et al. Increased discrimination of "false memories" in autism spectrum disorder. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (peer reviewed, eight research centers participating)
"We found that individuals with ASD are able to discriminate false memory items from true items significantly better than are control subjects. Memory in patients with ASD may be more accurate than in normal individuals under certain conditions. These results also suggest that semantic representations comprise a less distributed network in high-functioning adults with ASD. Furthermore, these results may be related to the unusually high memory capacities found in some individuals with ASD."
PMID 10900024
Cited by 16 articles per Google scholar
memory/visual Do high functioning persons with autism present superior spatial abilities? Caron MJ, Mottron L, Rainville C, Chouinard S.
"Superior performance for individuals with HFA was found in tasks involving maps, in the form of superior accuracy in graphic cued recall of a path, and shorter learning times in a map learning task. We propose that a superior ability to detect ... simple visual elements yields superior performance in tasks relying on the detection and graphic reproduction of the visual elements composing a map. Enhanced discrimination, detection, and memory for visually simple patterns in autism may account for the superior performance of persons with autism on visuo-spatial tasks that heavily involve pattern recognition"
PMID 14728920
vision : Superior visual search in adults with autism.
"Recent studies have suggested that children with autism perform better than matched controls on visual search tasks and that this stems from a superior visual discrimination ability. This study assessed whether these findings generalize from children to adults with autism. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that, like children, adults with autism were superior to controls at searching for targets. Experiment 3 showed that increases in target-distractor similarity slowed the visual search performance of the control group significantly more than that of the autism group, suggesting that the adults with autism have a superior visual discrimination ...ability."
PMID 15358868
Cited by 7 articles per Google scholar
(thanx for the PMID, sandy, i don't really know how to turn those up.)
vision Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (Netherlands, peer reviewed, two research centers participating).
Superior Disembedding Performance of High-Functioning Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Their Parents: The Need for Subtle Measures.
We assessed the disembedding performance on the Embedded Figures Test (EFT) of high-functioning subjects with autism or autism spectrum disorders from multi-incidence families and the performance of their parents. The individuals with autism spectrum disorders were significantly faster than matched controls in locating the shape, but their parents were not faster than a control group of parents. However, both the individuals with autism spectrum disorders and their fathers made significantly fewer incorrect attempts before finding the right shape than matched controls.
PMID 16612576
No citations in other articles per Google scholar
acoustic
Enhanced Pitch Sensitivity in Individuals with Autism: A Signal Detection Analysis
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/...3321208169
doi:10.1162/089892903321208169
Cited by 25 articles per Google scholar
general (secondary source - not a primary study):
Is Asperger’s syndrome/High-Functioning Autism necessarily a disability?, Simon Baron-Cohen, U. Cambridge Centre for Autism Research
This article considers whether Asperger Syndrome (AS) or high-functioning autism (HFA) necessarily lead to disability or whether AS/HFA simply lead to 'difference'. It concludes that the term 'difference' in relation to AS/HFA is a more neutral, value-free, and fairer description than terms such as 'impairment', 'deficiency' or 'disability'; that the term 'disability' only applies to the lower functioning cases of autism; but that the term 'disability' may need to be retained for AS/HFA as long as the legal framework only provides financial and other support for individuals with a disability.
PMID 11014749
updated CeilingCrash 14:19, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Cited by 16 articles per Google scholar SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:32, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
general (secondary source, not a study)
Autism: Common, heritable, but not harmful.
We assert that one of the examples used by Keller & Miller (K&M), namely, autism, is indeed common, and heritable, but we question whether it is harmful. We provide a brief review of cognitive science literature in which autistics perform superiorly to non-autistics in perceptual, reasoning, and comprehension tasks; however, these superiorities are often occluded and are instead described as dysfunctions.
doi:10.1017/S0140525X06319097
(thanx to SG for the scholar reference counts, which i think are pretty good indicators of general acceptance)
general (not a study)
Enhanced perceptual functioning in autism: an update, and eight principles of autistic perception.
We propose an "Enhanced Perceptual Functioning" model encompassing the main differences between autistic and non-autistic social and non-social perceptual processing. Increased perceptual expertise may be implicated in the choice of special ability in savant autistics, and in the variability of apparent presentations within PDD (autism with and without typical speech, Asperger syndrome) in non-savant autistics. The overfunctioning of brain regions typically involved in primary perceptual functions may explain the autistic perceptual endophenotype.
(bolding is mine - CeilingCrash 19:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC))
PMID 16453071
abstract reasoning The Nature and Level of Autistic intelligence.
(This is a very recent, rather long and complex study. I'll excerpt some passages here, with the caveat they are out of context. Also, it is not clear to what extent autism, HFA and AS have been intermingled, or this is just Autism proper.)
"A third of the subjects scored above the 90th percentile on Raven's Matrices" (more excerpts to come)
PMID 17680932 Full article http://psych.wisc.edu/lang/pdf/Dawson_Au...S_2007.pdf
updated CeilingCrash 19:07, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
memory : Beversdorf DQ, Smith BW, Crucian GP, et al. Increased discrimination of "false memories" in autism spectrum disorder. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (peer reviewed, eight research centers participating)
"We found that individuals with ASD are able to discriminate false memory items from true items significantly better than are control subjects. Memory in patients with ASD may be more accurate than in normal individuals under certain conditions. These results also suggest that semantic representations comprise a less distributed network in high-functioning adults with ASD. Furthermore, these results may be related to the unusually high memory capacities found in some individuals with ASD."
PMID 10900024
Cited by 16 articles per Google scholar
memory/visual Do high functioning persons with autism present superior spatial abilities? Caron MJ, Mottron L, Rainville C, Chouinard S.
"Superior performance for individuals with HFA was found in tasks involving maps, in the form of superior accuracy in graphic cued recall of a path, and shorter learning times in a map learning task. We propose that a superior ability to detect ... simple visual elements yields superior performance in tasks relying on the detection and graphic reproduction of the visual elements composing a map. Enhanced discrimination, detection, and memory for visually simple patterns in autism may account for the superior performance of persons with autism on visuo-spatial tasks that heavily involve pattern recognition"
PMID 14728920
vision : Superior visual search in adults with autism.
"Recent studies have suggested that children with autism perform better than matched controls on visual search tasks and that this stems from a superior visual discrimination ability. This study assessed whether these findings generalize from children to adults with autism. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that, like children, adults with autism were superior to controls at searching for targets. Experiment 3 showed that increases in target-distractor similarity slowed the visual search performance of the control group significantly more than that of the autism group, suggesting that the adults with autism have a superior visual discrimination ...ability."
PMID 15358868
Cited by 7 articles per Google scholar
(thanx for the PMID, sandy, i don't really know how to turn those up.)
vision Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (Netherlands, peer reviewed, two research centers participating).
Superior Disembedding Performance of High-Functioning Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Their Parents: The Need for Subtle Measures.
We assessed the disembedding performance on the Embedded Figures Test (EFT) of high-functioning subjects with autism or autism spectrum disorders from multi-incidence families and the performance of their parents. The individuals with autism spectrum disorders were significantly faster than matched controls in locating the shape, but their parents were not faster than a control group of parents. However, both the individuals with autism spectrum disorders and their fathers made significantly fewer incorrect attempts before finding the right shape than matched controls.
PMID 16612576
No citations in other articles per Google scholar
acoustic
Enhanced Pitch Sensitivity in Individuals with Autism: A Signal Detection Analysis
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/...3321208169
doi:10.1162/089892903321208169
Cited by 25 articles per Google scholar
general (secondary source - not a primary study):
Is Asperger’s syndrome/High-Functioning Autism necessarily a disability?, Simon Baron-Cohen, U. Cambridge Centre for Autism Research
This article considers whether Asperger Syndrome (AS) or high-functioning autism (HFA) necessarily lead to disability or whether AS/HFA simply lead to 'difference'. It concludes that the term 'difference' in relation to AS/HFA is a more neutral, value-free, and fairer description than terms such as 'impairment', 'deficiency' or 'disability'; that the term 'disability' only applies to the lower functioning cases of autism; but that the term 'disability' may need to be retained for AS/HFA as long as the legal framework only provides financial and other support for individuals with a disability.
PMID 11014749
updated CeilingCrash 14:19, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Cited by 16 articles per Google scholar SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:32, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
general (secondary source, not a study)
Autism: Common, heritable, but not harmful.
We assert that one of the examples used by Keller & Miller (K&M), namely, autism, is indeed common, and heritable, but we question whether it is harmful. We provide a brief review of cognitive science literature in which autistics perform superiorly to non-autistics in perceptual, reasoning, and comprehension tasks; however, these superiorities are often occluded and are instead described as dysfunctions.
doi:10.1017/S0140525X06319097
(thanx to SG for the scholar reference counts, which i think are pretty good indicators of general acceptance)
general (not a study)
Enhanced perceptual functioning in autism: an update, and eight principles of autistic perception.
We propose an "Enhanced Perceptual Functioning" model encompassing the main differences between autistic and non-autistic social and non-social perceptual processing. Increased perceptual expertise may be implicated in the choice of special ability in savant autistics, and in the variability of apparent presentations within PDD (autism with and without typical speech, Asperger syndrome) in non-savant autistics. The overfunctioning of brain regions typically involved in primary perceptual functions may explain the autistic perceptual endophenotype.
(bolding is mine - CeilingCrash 19:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC))
PMID 16453071
abstract reasoning The Nature and Level of Autistic intelligence.
(This is a very recent, rather long and complex study. I'll excerpt some passages here, with the caveat they are out of context. Also, it is not clear to what extent autism, HFA and AS have been intermingled, or this is just Autism proper.)
"A third of the subjects scored above the 90th percentile on Raven's Matrices" (more excerpts to come)
PMID 17680932 Full article http://psych.wisc.edu/lang/pdf/Dawson_Au...S_2007.pdf
updated CeilingCrash 19:07, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
LOL