Autism
This paper appeared in Autism, 1998, 2, 296-301.
Autism occurs more often in families of physicists, engineers, and mathematicians.
Simon Baron-Cohen , Patrick Bolton, Sally Wheelwright, Victoria Scahill Liz Short, Genevieve Mead, and Alex Smith
Departments of Experimental Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Downing St, Cambridge, CB2 3EB, UK.
To whom correspondence should be addressed.
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Abstract
The study reported here tests a prediction that autism should occur more often in families of individuals whose occupation requires advanced folk physics but with no requirement of good folk psychology. Physics, engineering, and mathematics are paradigm examples of such occupations. Students in Cambridge University, studying one of these 3 subjects, were screened for cases of autism in their families. Relative to a control group of students studying literature, autism occurred significantly more often in families of students in the fields of physics, engineering, and mathematics.
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Autism is considered to be the most severe of the childhood psychiatric disorders. It is strongly heritable (Bailey et al., 1995) and is diagnosed on the basis of abnormalities in social development, communication, and imagination (APA, 1994). First-degree relatives of children with autism are at raised risk not only of autism itself, but also of a lesser variant (or broader phenotype) of autism (Baron-Cohen & Hammer, 1997; Bolton et al., 1994). One model proposes that the broader phenotype might be characterised as involving deficits in ‘folk psychology’ (social understanding) in the presence of intact or superior abilities in ‘folk physics’ (understanding inanimate objects) (Baron-Cohen, in press).
This study builds on the notion that cognition has a domain-specific structure (Barkow, Cosmides & Tooby, 1992; Gelman & Hirschfield, 1994), i.e., that cognitive domains exist in the human brain, as a result of natural selection. Two such basic
Autism occurs more often in families of physicists, engineers, and mathematicians.
Simon Baron-Cohen , Patrick Bolton, Sally Wheelwright, Victoria Scahill Liz Short, Genevieve Mead, and Alex Smith
Departments of Experimental Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Downing St, Cambridge, CB2 3EB, UK.
To whom correspondence should be addressed.
1
Abstract
The study reported here tests a prediction that autism should occur more often in families of individuals whose occupation requires advanced folk physics but with no requirement of good folk psychology. Physics, engineering, and mathematics are paradigm examples of such occupations. Students in Cambridge University, studying one of these 3 subjects, were screened for cases of autism in their families. Relative to a control group of students studying literature, autism occurred significantly more often in families of students in the fields of physics, engineering, and mathematics.
2
Autism is considered to be the most severe of the childhood psychiatric disorders. It is strongly heritable (Bailey et al., 1995) and is diagnosed on the basis of abnormalities in social development, communication, and imagination (APA, 1994). First-degree relatives of children with autism are at raised risk not only of autism itself, but also of a lesser variant (or broader phenotype) of autism (Baron-Cohen & Hammer, 1997; Bolton et al., 1994). One model proposes that the broader phenotype might be characterised as involving deficits in ‘folk psychology’ (social understanding) in the presence of intact or superior abilities in ‘folk physics’ (understanding inanimate objects) (Baron-Cohen, in press).
This study builds on the notion that cognition has a domain-specific structure (Barkow, Cosmides & Tooby, 1992; Gelman & Hirschfield, 1994), i.e., that cognitive domains exist in the human brain, as a result of natural selection. Two such basic
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