I have a son who is autistic and a number of my engineering friends are autistic. Digg.com is commenting on a Wired article that encourages techies to take an autism test.
My comments on digg follow.
While it is true that technical people have latent autistic tendencies, tests like this promote over diagnosis of the problem. Here's a recent news article from the journal Science:
If cases of autism are on the increase, as some believe, here's one provocative explanation: Blame the rise on marriages between like-minded people, whom psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen of Cambridge University in the U.K. calls "systemizers."Baron-Cohen argues that autism and related conditions like Asperger's are manifestations of what he calls the "extreme male brain": one with weak social skills and a strong tendency to "systemize," or think according to rules and laws. In a study of 1000 U.K. families, he has reported that the fathers as well as the grandfathers of children with autism spectrum conditions are more likely to work in professions such as engineering. And the mothers are also likely to be systemizers "with male-typical interests," he says.
Baron-Cohen, whose theory is in press at the journal Progress in Neuropsycho-pharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, says he and colleagues are performing genetic studies, collecting subjects, and conducting population surveys in systemizer-heavy areas, such as Silicon Valley, to test the idea that techies marrying each other is raising autism rates.
Some balk at the idea. Psychologist Elizabeth Spelke of Massachusetts Institute of Technology says there's no good evidence for an "inborn, male predisposition for systemizing." But psychiatrist Herbert Schreier of Children's Hospital in Oakland, California, believes the intermarriage of techies "probably does account for why you have pockets of high autism around Stanford and MIT." Drawing on his own practice, he adds that fathers of children with learning disabilities have a disproportionate tendency to be engineers or computer scientists.
My son and a number of my technical friends' children do have autism spectrum disorders. BTW, here's the real test from DSM-IV which was the criteria for my son's diagnosis:
DSM-IV Criteria, Pervasive Developmental Disorders 299.00 Autistic DisorderA. A total of six (or more) items from (1), (2), and (3), with at least two from (1), and one each from (2) and (3):
(1) qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following:
(a) marked impairment in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors, such as eye-to- eye gaze, facial expression, body postures, and gestures to regulate social interaction
(b) failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level
(c) a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people (e.g., by a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest)
(d) lack of social or emotional reciprocity
(2) qualitative impairments in communication, as manifested by at least one of the following:
(a) delay in, or total lack of, the development of spoken language (not accompanied by an attempt to compensate through alternative modes of communication such as gesture or mime)
(b) in individuals with adequate speech, marked impairment in the ability to initiate or sustain a conversation with others
(c) stereotyped and repetitive use of language or idiosyncratic language
(d) lack of varied, spontaneous make-believe play or social imitative play appropriate to developmental level
(3) restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities as manifested by at least one of the following:
(a) encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus
(b) apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals
(c) stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (e.g., hand or finger flapping or twisting or complex whole-body movements)
(d) persistent precoccupation with parts of objects
B. Delays or abnormal functioning in at least one of the following areas, with onset prior to age 3 years: (1) social interaction, (2) language as used in social communication, or (3) symbolic or imaginative play.
C. The disturbance is not better accounted for by Rett's disorder or childhood disintegrative disorder.
299.80 Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified
This category should be used when there is a severe and pervasive impairment in the development of reciprocal social interaction or verbal and nonverbal communication skills, or when stereotyped behavior, interests, and activities are present, but the criteria are not met for a specific pervasive developmental disorder, schizophrenia, schizotypal personality disorder, or avoidant personality disorder. For example, this category includes "atypical autism" --presentations that do not meet the criteria for autistic disorder because of late age of onset, atypical symptomatology, or subthreshold symptomatology, or all of these.
299.80 Asperger's Disorder
A. Qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following:
(1) marked impairment in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors, such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body postures, and gestures to regulate social interaction
(2) failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level
(3) a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people (e.g., by a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest to other people)
(4) lack of social or emotional reciprocity
B. Restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities, as manifested by at least one of the following:
(1) encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus
(2) apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals
(3) stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (e.g., hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements)
(4) persistent preoccupation with parts of objects
C. The disturbance causes clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
D. There is no clinically significant general delay in language (e.g., single words used by age 2 years, communicative phrases used by age 3 years).
E. There is no clinically significant delay in cognitive development or in the development of age-appropriate self-help skills, adaptive behavior (other than in social interaction), and curiosity about the environment in childhood.
F. Criteria are not met for another specific pervasive developmental disorder or schizophrenia.
