Simon Baron-Cohen

..We conclude that low levels of eye contact are not predictive of later development of Asperger syndrome...

..abstract:..

..We also note the importance of a critical discussion of any prior findings, biological follow-up where possible, and a means of accessing the raw data...

..In this paper, the use of the AQ to define the broader, medium and narrow autism phenotypes (BAP, MAP, NAP) is reported, and the proportion of parents with each phenotype is compared between the two groups...

..In this study, we tested whether FT is positively correlated with autistic traits in toddlers aged 18-24 months...

..abstract:..

..Here we suggest that specific aspects of autistic neuroanatomy may also be extremes of typical male neuroanatomy...

..none of the controls. Among the controls, boys scored higher than girls. The AQ can rapidly quantify where an adolescent is situated on the continuum from autism to normality...

..They appear 'change-resistant'. This proposal extends the extreme male brain theory of autism. Finally, evidence is reviewed for autism being the genetic result of assortative mating of two high systemizers...

..People with autism or Asperger Syndrome (AS) show altered patterns of brain activity during visual search and emotion recognition tasks. Autism and AS are genetic conditions and parents may show the 'broader autism phenotype.'..

..The implications for the design of autism-friendly interventions are also explored...

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..The E-S theory is also extended to the extreme male brain theory as a way of understanding the biased sex ratio in autism. Etiological predictions are discussed, as are the clinical applications arising from the E-S theory...

..We conclude that the origins of the association between autism and talent begin at the sensory level, include excellent attention to detail and end with hyper-systemizing...

..Ultimately, as these theories are not mutually exclusive and ASC is multi-factorial, they may help explain the male prevalence of ASC...

..People with autism spectrum conditions have below average empathy alongside intact or even above average interest in systems. As such, they can be conceptualized as an extreme of the typical male brain...

..These results are discussed in relation to two linked theories: the 'empathizing-systemizing' (E-S) theory of sex differences and the extreme male brain (EMB) theory of autism...

..Recent reports estimate the prevalence of autism-spectrum conditions in the UK to be 1%...

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..Asperger Syndrome (AS) is a neuropsychiatric condition with social and communication deficits, repetitive behaviours and narrow interests. Social deficits are particularly striking, including difficulties in understanding others...

..These results need to be followed up in a much larger sample to test if clinical cases of ASC have elevated fT...

..Verbal IQ was positively correlated with performance, and females performed worse than males in the AS/HFA group. Results are discussed with regard to multi modal empathizing deficits in autism spectrum conditions (ASC)...

..We conclude that using The Transporters significantly improves emotion recognition in children with ASC. Future research should evaluate the series' effectiveness with lower-functioning individuals...

..In humans, exposure to atypical levels of prenatal androgens may result in masculine behavior and ability patterns. Normal inter-individual variation in fT levels has also been correlated with later sex-typed behavior...

..We discuss the importance of the superficially better socio-communication ability in adult females with ASC in terms of why females with ASC may more often go under-recognized, and receive their diagnosis later, than males...

..These results are consistent with previous results suggesting that people with HFA and AS have difficulties drawing ToM inferences...

..These observations reveal that the atypical organization of neural circuitry preferentially coding for self-information is a key mechanism at the heart of both self-referential and social impairments in autism...

..These results bridge a long-standing gap between human and nonhuman species by showing that FT acts as an organizing mechanism for the development of regional sexual dimorphism in the human brain...

..We suggest that this possible organizational effect of FT on callosal asymmetry may also play a role in shaping sexual dimorphism in functional and structural brain development, cognition, and behavior...

..These results also have implications for the causes of disabilities involving empathy, such as autism spectrum conditions, and may explain the increased rate of such conditions among males...

..HFA/AS are associated with different patterns of activation of social brain areas during fearful emotion processing, and the absence in the HFA/AS brain of a response to varying emotional intensity...

..Further, the AS group showed an LVF bias in the non-social condition. These results show a differential pattern of hemispheric processing of faces in AS...

..Although exploratory, these findings have implications for understanding the nature of the face processing deficit in ASC as well as offering potential insights into face processing interventions for individuals with ASC...

..5) to ordered (H = 1). Shifts in fractal scaling of physiological time series have been associated with neurological and cardiac conditions...

..8 (7.7)). The intraclass correlation for test-retest reliability was 0.82 (n = 330). The distribution in the control group was close to normal. Full examination of the clinical validity of the Q-CHAT and test properties is underway...

..Factor analysis provided support for four of the five AQ-Child design subscales. Future studies should evaluate how the AQ-C performs in population screening...

..In animals, foetal testosterone (fT) plays a central role in organising the brain and in later social behaviour. fT has also been implicated in language development, eye-contact, and spatial ability in humans...

..The film format arguably is more challenging and ecologically closer to real social situations...

..We conclude that different profiles of social and communication skills in boys and girls must be taken into account when measuring these skills in the general population...

..The correlation between the two test scores was 0.83 (Spearman's rho). The CAST has shown good test-retest reliability, and now requires further investigation in a high-scoring sample...

..This neural and cognitive pattern needs to be tested in a series of similar cases, and with more constrained control groups, to confirm the significance of this association...

..Abnormalities involved a cortical network known to have a role in attention switching and attentional resource distribution. These results throw light on the neurophysiological processes underlying autistic 'resistance to change'...

..A critique of explanations for this finding is presented...

..We conclude there are intact threat detection mechanisms in AS, under simple and predictable conditions, but that like other face-perception tasks, the visual search of threat faces task reveals atypical face-processing in HFA/AS...

..There is not currently enough evidence to recommend the use of the CAST as a screening test within a public health screening programme in the general population...

..The FQ thus reveals both a sex difference in the style of friendship in the general population, and provides support for the extreme male brain theory of autism...

..This article is an author response to three previous commentaries on 'Fetal testosterone and autistic traits' (Auyeung et al., 2009)...

..This latter finding is consistent with the extreme male brain theory of autism, and with the idea that people with ASC have less gaze expertise...

..Empathy and systemizing in children show similar patterns of sex differences to those observed in adults. Children with ASC tend towards a 'hyper-masculinized' profile, irrespective of sex...

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..This pattern of results is interpreted using a modification of Haxby et al.'s model of face perception...

..This confirmed that women scored significantly higher than men. The EQ reveals both a sex difference in empathy in the general population and an empathy deficit in AS/HFA...

..Using Mind Reading for a relatively short period of time allows users to learn to recognize a variety of complex emotions and mental states. However, additional methods are required to enhance generalization...

..The implications of these results are discussed in relation to social functioning in AS...

..Alternative explanations of the results are also explored, including an interpretation through the idea of open and closed systems...

..5 percent. The overall sex ratio of the children with ASC replicated findings for classical autism of 4:1 (M:F), but in those children being educated in mainstream schools the sex ratio was 8:1 (M:F)...

..They were further sub-phenotyped based on responses to sub-groups of stimuli into word-colour (WC) and music-colour (MC). Development of this instrument has important implications for the diagnosis and phenotyping of visual synaesthesia...

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..Our findings reveal that children with ASC have residual difficulties in this aspect of empathy. The use of language-based compensatory strategies for emotion recognition is discussed...

..This new film task has the potential to assay different aspects of how the social world is represented differently in ASC, including during moral comprehension...

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..The correlation between the two test scores was 0.67 (Spearman's rho). The CAST shows moderate test-retest reliability in a high scoring sample, further evidence that it is a relatively robust screening tool for epidemiological research...

..We aimed to evaluate across several well validated measures in both domains, whether both self-referential cognition and empathy are impaired in ASC and whether these two domains are related to each other...

..The relationship between FT and current testosterone levels also needs to be clarified. The present results may be relevant to understanding the increased male risk to developing autism...

..However, it remains unclear whether these abilities are specifically the result of differences in sensory thresholds (low-level processing), rather than higher-level cognitive processes...

..If "truth" is defined as lawful patterns in data then, according to the hypersystemizing theory, people with ASC are strongly driven to discover the "truth"...

..CONCLUSIONS: We conclude there is evidence that functional connectivity of medial temporal lobe structures specifically is abnormal in people with Asperger's syndrome during fearful face processing...

..This study supports the hypothesis that patients with fvFTD, but not those with Alzheimer's disease, are impaired on tests of ToM, and may explain some of the abnormalities in interpersonal behaviour that characterize fvFTD...

..This has implications for medical conditions involving hypo-responsivity to emotional and social stimuli, such as autism...

..This concept is shown for two types of complex biological samples: serum samples and fibroblast samples. In both studies QC samples were added among dozens of clinical ones and analyzed using a label-free quantitative proteomic platform...

..Future research should examine at which level of visual processing sensory differences emerge...

..The N170 was larger (more negative) to objects classified as face like than to those classified as non-face like. These data suggest that the amplitude of the N170 to objects is affected by the face-likeness of the objects...

..Results are discussed in terms of a heightened ability to maintain an attentional set in those with a high systemizing cognitive style...

..02). This result is discussed in terms of androstenedione being the immediate precursor of, and being converted into, testosterone, dihydrotestosterone, or estrogens in hormone-sensitive tissues and organs...

..There was a non-significant trend for SULP and LEGO groups to improve more than the no-intervention group in communication and socialisation skills...

..Results suggest that compared with other tools currently available, the CAST may be useful for identifying children at risk for AS and related conditions, in a mainstream non-clinical sample. Further research is ongoing...

..The difficulties encountered in the conduct of RCTs for pre-school children with autism are discussed. Methodological challenges and strategies for future well-designed RCTs for autism interventions are highlighted...

..These findings suggest that individual differences in autistic traits are substantially genetically independent of intellectual functioning. The relevance of these findings to future studies is discussed...

..The AAA is described, and its use with a series of n = 42 clinic-patients is reported. Thirty-seven of these (88%) met DSM-IV criteria, but only 34 of these (80%) met AAA criteria. The AAA is therefore more conservative than DSM-IV...

..Future research will need to focus on evaluating the extent to which any form of intervention reduces the triad of impairments whilst supporting the triad of strengths...

..These results suggest that prenatal exposure to high levels of testosterone influences some autistic traits and that hormonal factors may be involved in vulnerability to autism...

..94). Males scored significantly higher than females in the control group, but not in the ASD group. The pattern of difference between the Japanese clinical group and the control group was remarkably similar to the findings in the UK...

..Thought-bubbles provide a theoretically interesting as well as an especially easy and effective teaching technique...

..The results also provide further support for the idea that some of the impairments in social cognition seen in patients with autism may result from dysfunction of the amygdala...

..This article describes work toward this convergence at the MIT Media Lab, and anticipates new research that might arise from the interaction between research into autism, technology, and human socioemotional intelligence...

..These results indicate that the amygdala's critical role in theory of mind may not be just in development, but also in "on-line" theory of mind processing in the adult brain...

..This result provides neurophysiological evidence for privileged processing when an individual becomes personally involved as the object of another's emotions...

..Results confirmed both predictions. These findings provide initial evidence of how social impairments can produce mild linguistic impairments...

..Results confirmed both predictions. Results are discussed in terms of the role of language in the development of mindreading...

..To compare siblings of children with autism (SIBS-A) and siblings of children with typical development (SIBS-TD) at 4 and 14 months of age...

..To examine longitudinal associations between diagnosis, joint attention, play and imitation abilities and language outcome in infants with autism and pervasive developmental disorder...

..0, SD = 6.88; controls mean AQ = 11.7, SD = 5.94). Among the controls, males scored significantly higher than females. The pattern of difference between clinical groups and controls was found to be similar in both countries...

..Results also showed that humanities majors scored higher than sciences majors on the EQ, and again the result was reversed on the SQ. The results were discussed in relation to the E-S theory of gender differences...

..Among the controls, males scored significantly higher than females. The similarity of results in both the general population and the clinical group across the two cultures was remarkable...

..This finding may shed light on the neurophysiological process underlying narrow interests and what clinically is called 'need for sameness'...

..Finally, we discuss predictions based on the atypical emergence of the social brain network...