Pushing limits - endless possibilities

"The limits of autistics should constantly be pushed and their educational materials should never be simplified."

I read this line and thought to myself, so many of us already know this, thank you for a scientific study that shows this. Here's the whole article....

Published: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 - 11:24

Autistics are up to 40 percent faster at problem-solving than non-autistics, according to a new Université de Montréal and Harvard University study published in the journal Human Brain Mapping. As part of the investigation, participants were asked to complete patterns in the Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM) – test that measures hypothesis-testing, problem-solving and learning skills. "While both groups performed RSPM test with equal accuracy, the autistic group responded more quickly and appeared to use perceptual regions of the brain to accelerate problem-solving," says lead author Isabelle Soulières, a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University who completed the experiment at the Université de Montréal. "Some critics agued that autistics would be unable to complete the RSPM because of its complexity, yet our study shows autistics complete it as efficiently and have a more highly developed perception than non-autistics."

Fifteen autistics and 18 non-autistics were recruited for the study. Participants were 14 to 36 years old and matched according to their preliminary results on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. All subjects underwent magnetic resonance imaging to explore their neural activity during RSPM problem-solving. While autism is a common neurodevelopmental disability characterized by profound differences in information processing and analysis, this study showed that autistics have efficient reasoning abilities that build on their perceptual strengths.

"This study builds on our previous findings and should help educators capitalize on the intellectual abilities of autistics," says senior researcher Laurent Mottron, the new Marcel & Rolande Gosselin Research Chair in Autism Cognitive Neuroscience of the Université de Montréal and psychiatry professor. "The limits of autistics should constantly be pushed and their educational materials should never be simplified."

Adds Dr. Soulières: "The Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices are among the most complex tests to provide insight on how a person understands and formulates rules, manages goal hierarchies and performs high-level abstractions. Our wager was that autistics could complete such a test and they surpassed our expectations."

There are many questions that parents ask themselves when faced with a child with autism. One of the biggies, especially for those that are higher functioning, is:

Do I tell others about my child's diagnosis?

This question can be asked for a number of reasons. Some of it is vanity - not wanting others to know we have anything less than a perfect child. Some of it is fear, not wanting those fools out there to tease our child because they are different. And some of it is hope, wanting our child to pursue to the highest degree all that is possible for them. I have heard countless stories from parents speaking about how their high IQ children enter the school system, only to be given meaningless tasks to keep them busy to teach social skills and work on some behavioral issues, all without any academic merit. Teachers hear that the child has a disability and frequently expect less of them because of their odd ways, behaviors and mannerisms and inability to express themselves.

Temple Grandin, perhaps the most well known living person with autism, stated in a video I once watched that people with autism are what they do; that intellectually satisfying work makes life meaningful for them. I am not sure of the exact phrase she used in the video - but I recall the moment she said it very well; it sent shivers down my arms and brought tears to my eyes. I realized that that was true of me as well (even though I don't believe myself to be autistic) and that my self worth, the way I feel in general and about myself in particular, has always been based more on what I am doing than other things such as the items I own, the places I go, the people I see. Yes, in my world, even relationships frequently come second to the feeling that I am contributing to the society we live in by my efforts.

I think about so many young women I see now days - wearing provocative, designer clothing, perfect makeup, drinking the martini du jour, to create an image and basing their self worth on their attractiveness to men. Indeed, in my twenties, I succumbed to that myself a bit although I was geeky engineer, so not as much as others. Self esteem is a big issue for a lot of people - and I think it's because they base their self esteem on society's values (and face it - looks and money are the basis of success in our society) and that doesn't really match up with what truly makes most smart people tick.

Sometimes I wonder is autism is not a disability, but rather an evolution of mankind. Is it mother nature's way of snapping us back to grid - using our brains and not basing things on more primitive elements such as sex, money, or power? Wouldn't that be a hoot.