An autism researcher is arguing that autistic people have some advantages over people who don't have the condition.
By seeing autism's differences as defects, researchers may fail to fully understand the condition, said Dr. Laurent Mottron, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Montreal, as reported by MSNBC.
"Recent data and my own personal experience suggest it's time to start thinking of autism as an advantage in some spheres, not a cross to bear," Mottron wrote in a commentary published Wednesday in the journal Nature, according to MSNBC. "I no longer believe that intellectual disability is intrinsic to autism."
Mottron adds that when researchers see activation in regions of autistic people's brains that differ from others' brains, they report these differences as deficits, "rather than evidence simply of their alternative, yet sometimes successful, brain organization," MSNBC reports.
But Mottron emphasized he does not want to overlook the challenges of autism.
"One out of 10 autistics cannot speak, nine out of 10 have no regular joband four out of five autistic adults are still dependent on their parents," Mottron said, as reported by MSNBC.
But people with autism can make significant contributions to society in the right environment, he told MSNBC.
Several people with autism work in Mottron's lab, according to MSNBC. These employees do well in the research environment because they have exceptional memories and can remember information they read weeks ago. They are also less likely to misremember something, which comes in handy in a science lab.
One researcher in particular, Michelle Dawson, can instantly recall the methods used to study face-perception in autism, Mottron told MSNBC.
Recent research backs up Mottron's claim, MSNBC reports. It concluded that people with autism not only outperform others in auditory and visual tasks, but also do better on non-verbal tests of intelligence.
In a test that involved completing a visual pattern, people with autism finished 40 percent faster than those without the condition.
Motton concluded that general IQ tests aren't truly measuring an autistic person's intellectual capacity.
"In measuring the intelligence of a person with a hearing impairment, we wouldn't hesitate to eliminate components of the test that can’t be explained using sign language; why shouldn’t we do the same for autistics?" Mottron said, as reported by MSNBC.
