The empathising - systemising theory of autism : implications for education

Since communication is always social, it might be more fruitful to think of autism and Asperger’s Syndrome as sharing features in two broad areas: social-communication and narrow interests/repetitive actions. As for distinguishing features, a diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome requires that the child spoke on time and has average IQ or above. Today the notion of an autistic spectrum is no longer defined by any sharp separation from ‘normality’ (Wing, 1997). This ‘normal’ distribution of autistic traits is evident in the results from the Autism Spectrum Quotient (or AQ) (Baron-Cohen et al, 2006, 2001c). In the general population, males score slightly (but statistically significantly) higher than females. Since autism spectrum conditions are far more common in males than in females (classic autism occurs in four males for every one female, and AS occurs in nine males for every one female) (Rutter, 1978), this may suggest that the number of autistic traits a person has is linked to a sex-linked biological factor – genetic or hormonal, or both (Baron-Cohen et al, 2005, 2004).