The Autistic Perceptual Difference

I want to draw your attention to a paper recently published online in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders: Play and Developmental Outcomes in Infant Siblings of Children with Autism (Christensen, Hutman, Rozga, Young, Ozonoff, Rogers, Baker, Sigman, 2010; hereafter referred to as PDO). There is much I might criticize about this paper—for instance, its prejudicial insistence on describing everything autistic as an impairment, and also its abundant use of pseudo measures to create the veneer of science (that is, an observer “counting” the number of functional play activities in a four minute session is not the same thing as measuring the distance from Mars to Neptune, no matter how much statistical massaging is applied thereafter—concocted measures are the calling card of a concocted science). In truth, however, these criticisms would apply to almost every instance of current autism research, so they do not of themselves distinguish the paper. What does distinguish the paper is that after one filters out all the fuzzy science, and after one overlooks all the prejudicial assumptions emanating from the paper's authors, the residue that remains still provides some useful insight into the nature of autism, including strong evidence for what I believe to be the nearest thing we currently have to that much sought-after prize, an actual cause of autism. Since the paper's authors have preemptively blinded themselves to these fertile possibilities (because of their prejudicial insistence on seeing everything autistic as an impairment), allow me to step in and try to shed a more productive light on their work.



The study described in PDO centers on observational data of infant siblings of autistic children, alongside similar observational data of non-autistic controls. Since a fair portion of these infant siblings will later be recognized as autistic themselves, these observations allow for a relatively large number of comparisons of autistic and non-autistic behaviors at early ages, well before outside interventions and influences begin to obscure the source of such behaviors. This particular study observed children at the age of eighteen months, and although both autistic and non-autistic behaviors are fairly limited at this age, it is not unreasonable to assume that whatever behaviors do exist at eighteen months, they are for the most part naturally and spontaneously derived.

To cut to the chase, a major finding from PDO is that the infant siblings who will eventually be identified as autistic are observed to display fewer functional play behaviors and more non-functional repetitive play behaviors than do non-autistic controls. The terms “functional” and “non-functional” are unfortunate choices (I will have more to say about these terms later), but within the context of PDO, it becomes apparent that the term “functional” is intended to describe play activity that is considered “appropriate” vis-a-vis the activities and expectations of other humans, and thus another, less prejudicial way of describing this particular finding is to say that non-autistic children engage more frequently in human-centric or human-derived play behaviors, whereas autistic children tend to engage, relatively speaking, in more object-centric or object-repetitive behaviors. Indeed, when the authors get around to discussing the observed differences between autistic and non-autistic behaviors at eighteen months of age, they concentrate precisely on this people versus non-people aspect of perception and activity. The authors' own words:

Examination of the subtypes of functional play revealed that the ASD [autistic] sibling group showed fewer self-directed and other-directed play behaviors than the TD [typically developing] controls. However, the ASD sibling group did not show fewer object-directed functional play acts. This finding is of particular interest because it suggests that children with ASD may not understand people as potential recipients of a play action and/or are not motivated to direct play behaviors to people (self or other) even before many of them are diagnosed.

Although PDO's science behind the above statement is far from precise, nonetheless, on a crudely observational level, the authors are actually onto something here; indeed, the above statement crystallizes perhaps the most useful aspect of their study. With it, PDO becomes yet another instance in a growing body of evidence, much of it dealing with children at a very young age, that demonstrates the fundamental, early-observable distinction between autistic and non-autistic individuals, namely that each group perceptually focuses on an entirely different class of sensory targets. Non-autistic individuals focus primarily on humans and human-centric activities, whereas autistic individuals focus primarily on objects and activities that are non-biological and non human-centric but that are often rich in concepts such as pattern, structure, symmetry and form. For another much-publicized example of this phenomenon, see the study Two-Year-Olds with Autism Orient to Non-Social Contingencies Rather than Biological Motion (Klin, Lin, Gorrindo, Ramsay, Jones, 2009), which demonstrates that two year-old non-autistic children focus primarily on point light displays that depict biological motion, whereas two year-old autistic children focus primarily on point light displays that depict some form of non-biological pattern.

This repeatedly observable distinction between autistic and non-autistic perception and behavior is so important and so significant that I believe it needs to be highlighted and given a name. Therefore, let me dub it the autistic perceptual difference and let me define it in the following way:

Non-autistic individuals perceptually orient primarily to humans and to human-related activities, whereas autistic individuals do not.

There are several items to note about this definition of the autistic perceptual difference. In the first place, the autistic perceptual difference is not the same thing as a social deficit model of autism. A social deficit model of autism would imply that autistic individuals readily perceive other humans—just as non-autistic individuals do—but that autistic individuals, through a neurological defect or some other mechanism, are somehow unable to respond correctly to social inputs or to social situations. I will not go into detail here about the paucity of evidence in support of the social deficit model of autism, but I would note that the mere fact many autistic individuals do mature to the point of being quite capable and quite sophisticated in social circumstances later in life is enough all by itself to make the idea of an inherent social deficit highly improbable. By contrast, the definition of the autistic perceptual difference implies no such deficit—it posits only the perceptual distinction. All the autistic behaviors commonly portrayed by autism researchers as social shortcomings are in fact behaviors that can be expected—that is to say, they are behaviors that are quite healthy within the context of autistic perception. Autistic social behaviors are simply the natural response arising from a form of perception that does not spontaneously orient to the other members of the species.

A second point to note about the definition of the autistic perceptual difference is that it also provides an affirmative description of non-autistic perception. This is an area conspicuously absent in the current state of autism research. Although considerable research dollars are spent and considerable ink is spilled on describing what is presumably wrong about autistic individuals, scarcely one penny is deployed or one drop of ink is applied to describing what is supposedly right about non-autistic individuals. Or to put it more fundamentally, no one ever bothers to address the question, what makes non-autistic individuals non-autistic? The definition of the autistic perceptual difference provides an answer to that question in a fundamental way, by highlighting the species-specific focus of non-autistic perception, and it should be noted that while this species-specific focus aligns non-autistic individuals with the perceptions and behaviors of the remainder of the animal kingdom, oddly enough it leaves non-autistic individuals somewhat atypical with respect to the current state of civilization and mankind. It is my belief that a wealth of anthropological information is just waiting to be gleaned from the contrast and blending of our respective knowledge about autistic and non-autistic forms of perception, and at any rate, there can be no question autism research will never arrive at an accurate, comprehensive and meaningful description of the nature of autism without also arriving at a correspondingly accurate, comprehensive and meaningful description of the nature of non-autism. The autistic perceptual difference provides an excellent place from which to begin that investigation.

The final thing to note about the definition of the autistic perceptual difference is that it states the primary characteristic of autistic perception. The other observable characteristics—such as the tendency towards repetition, and the natural attraction towards objects and activities embodying pattern, structure, etc.—these remaining observable characteristics, although they follow immediately and necessarily from the lack of a human-specific orientation, they must still be described, technically speaking, as secondary characteristics. What is happening here is that because autistic individuals do not have a species-specific focus to serve for cognitive grounding (as is the case for non-autistic individuals), autistic individuals find themselves in the near grip of a sensory chaos, and must overcome this chaos by engaging with the few features in their sensory environment that inherently stand out. When we reflect upon what kinds of features in a sensory environment would inherently stand out from the remainder, we are led immediately to those features rich in concepts such as symmetry and pattern. And viewed in this light we quickly realize that autistic behaviors—repetitive, structure-focused, symmetry-intense—are once again the expected behaviors arising from their particular form of perception. Far from being deficit driven, such behaviors are indeed quite healthy and quite necessary under the given circumstances of the autistic perceptual difference.

It is possible that one day advances in neuroscience, genetics, or some yet-unknown field will uncover a material cause of autism. Nonetheless, it must be admitted that today, currently—despite all the self-congratulatory press releases and despite Geraldine Dawson's annual pompom efforts—despite all this, the autism research community's current efforts towards uncovering a specified material cause of autism still stands at essentially square zero. The autistic perceptual difference is of course not a material cause of autism; but it is, as far as I can tell, the most fundamental piece of information we currently possess regarding autism, and thus stands as the closest thing we currently have to an actual explanation for autistic characteristics. As more and more studies are performed and published regarding autistic children at extremely young ages, my prediction is that the autistic perceptual difference will continue to emerge as the one consistent thread running throughout all those studies. Strip away their concocted science, strip away their researchers' preconceived notions, strip away the medical community's insistence that autism must be a devastating medical disorder, and what will remain in paper after paper is the same observable fact: non-autistic individuals perceptually orient primarily to humans and to human-related activities, whereas autistic individuals do not. Within that unfolding body of evidence can be found a deep and wonderful scientific story that is badly in need of being told; now if we can only get the researchers compiling that evidence to drop their prejudices for just a moment, and open their eyes.



Let me conclude by discussing in greater detail PDO's usage of the terms “functional” and “non-functional” to describe various types of observed play activity in very young children.

At one point in their paper, the authors do offer some examples to help explain their employment of these terms, noting for instance that a child who puts a toy spoon to the mouth of a doll would be counted as performing a functional play activity because that activity is considered “appropriate” with regard to the functional use of a spoon, whereas a child who repeatedly puts various items into and out of a pot would be counted as engaging in a non-functional repetitive play activity, since such activity does not coincide with the expected usage of a pot. I would have preferred, however, if the authors had stuck with the example of the doll and toy spoon when explaining non-functional play activity, noting for instance that if a child were to line up these items into a regular pattern—say, spoon doll spoon doll—that child would be counted as engaging in a repetitive non-functional play activity, just as with the example of the pot. By keeping the context of their contrasting examples more homogeneous, the authors would have revealed more clearly that their usage of the terms “functional” and “non-functional” has far more to do with their own preconceived judgments of these various play activities, rather than having anything to do with the inherent value of the activities themselves.

Think about it. From the perspective of an eighteen month-old child, the functional value of the many activities possible with a doll and toy spoon must seem rather arbitrary, and indeed would be arbitrary if not for one thing, namely that the “feeding” activity is clearly a human-centric activity. An eighteen month-old child who performs such activities is doing so because he or she has seen other humans make similar motions with a doll and toy spoon (quite likely) or has begun to match human actions with real spoons to the feigned actions with toys (perhaps less likely at eighteen months, but still conceivable). Therefore, what actually makes these activities “functional”—both in the eyes of the child and in the judgments of the researchers—is their human-specific nature. But does it follow therefore that only human-specific activities are functional? And is it wise to describe other classes of play activity as “non-functional”?

Note that the so-called non-functional play activity of autistic children is not random activity. If play activity actually were the result of some kind of impairment, then what we might expect to observe is play activity that is highly chaotic or unstructured in nature; but the play activity of autistic children is anything but. Repetition itself belies the notion of chaotic behavior, since repetition is the embodiment of temporal pattern, and when we consider the nature of activities such as lining up toys, spinning objects and selves, staring at ceiling fans, running back and forth in repeated patterns, flapping arms over and over, etc., we realize that far from being random or chaotic, such activities center almost exclusively on concepts rich in pattern, structure, symmetry and form. While it is true that autistic play activities are generally repetitious, object-oriented and non human-centric, it is not therefore true that such activities are “impaired” or “non-functional,” and to insist on saying so is to admit to having turned a blind eye to what these activities actually consist of. The researchers in PDO need to be reminded that their task was to observe autistic play activities, not prejudge them.

Looked at without prejudice, autistic play activities are seen to be functional in at least two very critical aspects. In the first place, autistic play activities are functional towards the development of autistic cognition. As we have already noted, without primary perception of species-specific influences, autistic individuals must obtain their cognitive grounding through their engagement with the few elements in their sensory environment that inherently stand out from the remainder, elements humanity has now come to recognize through the concepts of pattern, symmetry, structure and form. Viewed in this light, autistic play activities are seen as not only essential, but indeed healthy towards the developmental progress appropriate for an autistic form of perception, and another prediction I will readily make is that when all is said and done, it will come to be recognized that it is the lack of understanding towards these autistic perceptual and cognitive needs—along with the many mindless attempts to intervene and thwart such needs—that accounts for the large majority of poor outcomes in autistic individuals.

Just as importantly, autistic play activities are functional in another, much broader sense, one that the scientific community has sadly ignored through the present day, but one that is literally stunning in its overall size, scope and impact.

Humanity currently faces an outstanding riddle regarding the origin and nature of its sudden transformation from biologically limited primate to collective architect of landscapes now thoroughly drenched in such concepts as abstraction, symmetry, pattern and form. The irrational bleatings of the sociobiologists notwithstanding, no plausible explanation has yet to be offered as to the source of this sudden transformation. But in point of fact, the source of that transformation actually exists right before our very eyes. If you are in need of an example, I would note that several instances could have been found engaged in the four-minute play sessions of the PDO study.

Whereas no material cause for autism has yet to be uncovered, the material cause of humanity's remarkable cultural transformation exists in abundance all around us, exists in the embodiment of a form of cognition that focuses primarily on the non-biological concepts of pattern, structure, symmetry and form—the distinguishing hallmarks of modern civilization, and the distinguishing hallmarks of autistic perception. The atypical play activity of autistic children is indeed functional, functional in a way we have hardly begun to conceive.

One More Session

At first, he might even cooperate—
Longing for praise and uncertain yet
As to the nature of this new game,
He leaps forward with beaming curiosity.
You begin touting his sudden progress.

Later, after he has recognized
This falsely structured hour
As yet one more attempt
To pound square pegs into round holes,
You begin searching for a new therapy.

Fossilization

You cannot create literature as a professional writer. You cannot discover breakthrough knowledge as a professional scientist. And you cannot inspire mankind as a professional philosopher.

When we take our most treasured enterprises and transform them into commodities, we destroy all their merit. We now have millions of writers, but no brilliant words. We now have millions of scientists, but no useful insight. We now have millions of philosophers, but no courageous wisdom.

Academia has fossilized humanity's worth.

A New Approach to Covering the Costs of Autism Research Publication

I would like to propose a new approach to paying for the costs of autism research publication. Instead of having subscribers pay for access to autism research journals, a much better solution would be to have contributors pay for the right to publish in autism research journals.

This idea might at first appear to be somewhat counterintuitive, but it has one obvious advantage over the current approach: the new approach does a much better job of matching costs to benefits. For example, readers of autism research journals, who currently receive nothing of value for their enterprise, would no longer be charged for the privilege, providing in this case a perfect match of expense and gain. At the same time, those who get published in autism research journals—and thereby gain access to doctoral degrees, tenured positions, editorial appointments, government committees and of course additional funding—would be obliged to provide some recompense for these many benefits, thereby helping to keep the system going.

But I believe I can do this excellent idea even one better.

Instead of charging a flat fee for the publication of an autism research article, a much more effective approach would be to charge an exponentially increasing scale based upon the number of co-authors listed on each paper. A one-author article, for instance—which, after all, does have some chance of providing valuable insights into the nature of autism—might be published for just a nominal amount, or perhaps even for free. Adding a second author, however, would require the contribution of, let us say, an additional two thousand dollars to the final invoice, and adding a third author would augment the overall fee by a further four thousand dollars, adding a fourth author would cost an additional eight thousand dollars, and so on.

Under this proposal—and given the size of some co-author lists I have seen on recent autism articles—a few lucky journals might find themselves able to cover an entire decade's worth of expense through the publication of a single article alone. However, let me be clear on this—I do not recommend the booking of outlandish profits under such circumstances: the majority of revenue gathered in excess of reasonable costs should be returned immediately to supporting governmental agencies, for the express purpose of retiring national debts.

Another feature that might be added to my proposal—a slight improvement, if you will—is to require a surcharge for the inclusion of any co-authors who possess high name recognition or who have reached a certain standard of publication profligacy. That is to say, for each S. Baron-Cohen, G. Dawson, or F. Volkmar pasted onto the end of any given co-author list, this would add, oh let us say, an additional fifty thousand dollars to the final publishing fee. Now it is true that if this supplemental S. Baron-Cohen, G. Dawson, or F. Volkmar happens to be the tenth author “contributing” to the given paper, then that additional name, under the scale described above, would already be setting back the paper to the tune of a half million dollars or so, and thus tacking on an additional fifty thousand dollars might seem like overdoing it a bit. But keep in mind that the value in this new approach is to match costs to benefits, and we all know how much a career (not to mention, the peer review prospects) can be enhanced by association with that one special “colleague.” If perhaps this final feature of my proposal does seem a bit too controversial, might I suggest employing it on a trial basis at first, in just a few select journals, until the feature's true benefit becomes more apparent.

I of course have some additional revenue-raising suggestions, ones based upon the number of citations employed in each article—in particular, citations of the authors' own prior work—but I would prefer to keep such suggestions on the back burner for now; I do not want to overload the system all at once with too much cash. After an appropriate investment plan has been put in place at each journal, along with all the necessary safeguards, maybe then consideration can be given to some of these more advanced techniques.

Now I know what you must be thinking. You must be thinking that if this new approach is so obviously beneficial, then why has someone from the autism research community not already suggested it. I admit to feeling a bit sheepish about having to make this proposal myself, being an outsider and all, but I would note that there are many circumstances in life in which those who are part of a community are so attached to that community they cannot easily take a step back and gain helpful perspective. Quite often—let us be honest here for once—people are simply standing too close to the problem to recognize its solution.

Beasts

Evolution is a delicate description.
Bordering on the tautological,
It requires nuanced reflection
Upon time, environment and biological dynamics
To see its process unfolding as physical necessity,
And not deductive creed.

Thus when lumbering, blustery giants
Such as Dawkins and Pinker barge in,
One is reminded of stubbly-thumbed oafs
Who destroy posthaste every delicacy they touch.
No subtlety. No discretion. Just
The ponderous pounding of their shiny new toy
Again and again and again.

It is that trait,
This barbarous, incontinent bashing
Of Darwin's dangerous idea
Against every surface they meet,
That betrays their vulnerability—
Like beasts,
They have not reflected upon evolution at all.

Scientific Advancement

I agree with Michelle Dawson's assessment that the editorial board of the proposed journal Autism Insights is dubious in nature and bad news for autistic individuals, and I expect its actions will be motivated far more by personal interests and personal agendas than by any desire to advance the science.

But my question is: how would this differ from the editorial board of any other autism-related journal?

In fact, it is revealing that assessments in autism science have now devolved mostly into questions of scientific reputation, for when you are faced with a discipline in which practically no one is advancing the science in any meaningful way, reputation becomes the only thing left to argue.

Nonetheless, scientific reputation is only a pseudo measure. Playing by the rules and convincing others to recognize you for having played by the rules does nothing to promote understanding—to promote autism insight, if you will—and it certainly does not qualify as good news for autistic individuals.

Good science spinning its wheels travels no farther than bad science prowling at random.

Scientific Accumulation

A million trivial results do not add up to something significant; they add up to triviality.

Mathematical Weaknesses

Here is a telling statement by Professor Carl B. Boyer, straight from—of all places—A History of Mathematics:

A number of deficiencies in pre-Hellenic mathematics are quite obvious. Extant papyri and tablets contain specific cases and problems only, with no general formulations, and one may question whether these early civilizations really appreciated the unifying principles that are at the core of mathematics.

Of course. But then again: one may question whether academicians can see beyond the end of their own nose.

Harold Doherty and Intellectual Disability

Let me address Harold Doherty's claim that the recent CDC report on autism prevalence shows that 60 – 100% of children diagnosed with Autistic Disorder also have a significant intellectual disability (IQ less than 70). To put it bluntly, that claim is a ridiculous fiction, fabricated entirely by Mr. Doherty and not supported by anything in the CDC report. It is the kind of claim made by someone who either cannot read, cannot do math, or cannot handle logic. In Mr. Doherty's case, I suspect we are witnessing a combination of all three.

What the CDC report does state is that across the reporting sites where adequate data is available, 41% of all autism spectrum disorder (ASD) cases are associated with intellectual disability (with a range across the reporting sites from 29.3% to 51.2%). Mr. Doherty then leaps to the statement that if the Asperger Disorder cases were removed from the CDC study population, then this would imply that 60 – 100% of those with Autistic Disorder must have a significant intellectual disability (with great emphasis placed by Mr. Doherty on the midrange number of 80%).

It would be interesting to examine Mr. Doherty's math on that.

To keep the numbers round, let us assume that 40 out of 100 ASD cases show intellectual disability, which is consistent with the 41% number from the CDC report. Question: how many Asperger Disorder cases (no intellectual disability) would need to be removed from the study population so that the remaining population has an 80% intellectual disability rate? The answer is that 50 out of 100 would need to be removed. Mr. Doherty's math implies that around 50% of the cases in the CDC study are Asperger Disorder cases. I wonder if he really intended that.

I myself would be willing to grant Mr. Doherty his 50% Aspergers estimate, provided that either: a) the number shows up some place in the CDC report, or b) Mr. Doherty's other posts remain logically consistent with 50% of all ASD cases being Aspergers cases. Alas, neither provision holds true.

For instance, I have looked high and low, but the CDC report does not seem to indicate how many of its identified cases fall under the Aspergers classification. Maybe Mr. Doherty has read the report more carefully than I have, but my suspicion is that Mr. Doherty has not bothered to read the report at all. Figure 5 in the report does shows a group that would include the Aspergers cases, but Aspergers by itself does not seem to be broken out. What's worse, no matter how you look at Figure 5, it clearly does not support Mr. Doherty's 50% Aspergers estimate. If anything, Figure 5 indicates an Aspergers percentage much lower than 50%, a percentage so low it cannot in any way support Mr. Doherty's feeble attempt at math.

And then there is the matter of Mr. Doherty's other posts, the ones insisting quite loudly that autism is an environmental epidemic and that people with an Aspergers diagnosis, like Ari Ne'eman, are not really autistic. But if 50% of all ASD cases are Asperger Disorder (and therefore not really autism), what remains of the epidemic? Let's go ahead and apply Mr. Doherty's methodology to the CDC report itself, where we might note that if 1 in 110 children have ASD but 50% of these are Aspergers (and therefore not really autistic), then of course only 1 in 220 children really have autism. Better yet, if we forge ahead with Mr. Doherty's brand of logic, we might next compare this 1 in 220 figure to the 1 in 150 prevalence from the previous CDC report and note that the “epidemic” is now actually reversing—the “crisis” is indeed over! (Maybe it was all those environmental toxins that provided the cure everyone was looking for.) Now if perchance the preceding analysis is making your head spin, or if you feel like you have been somehow bamboozled or that I just made things up, please do not put the blame on me; remember, I am only following Mr. Doherty's logical lead.

Listen, no one is suggesting that intellectual abilities and disabilities in autism should be swept under the rug. Clearly, a significant portion of the autistic population experiences cognitive delays and difficulties, and a better understanding of this phenomenon would be helpful for all. But to concoct “facts” for the purpose of promoting a personal agenda serves no one well. I do not expect Mr. Doherty to agree with me very often, but I do expect him to be able to read, do the math, and think logically. I do not believe that is asking too much.

Of course it is possible that it is me who is incorrect; maybe it is my math, logic and reading skills that have gone awry. If so, I invite Mr. Doherty to demonstrate the error of my ways, and if he is successful, I will gladly make acknowledgment and apologize. But note that my only requirement for this demonstration is that Mr. Doherty use information straight out of the CDC report, and not straight out of his imagination.

And All Hell Breaks Loose

Autism Speaks, never one to miss the opportunity for tightening the fund-raising screws, has chosen to respond to today's CDC announcement on autism prevalence by portraying autistic individuals (yet once again) as devastating, burdensome, tragic and worthy of eradication. I wonder if this is how Autism Speaks has come to be known as a “charitable” organization.

Amidst all the doomsday hoopla, however, the Autism Speaks leadership might have overlooked that their sister organization, Homosexuality Speaks, also issued a press release today, one targeting prevalence rates in its own domain. Purely for the edification of Autism Speaks' officials—all of whom must have been quite busy today—I have reproduced the Homosexuality Speaks press release in its entirety below, complete with illuminating and perhaps familiar-sounding commentary from various Homosexuality Speaks officials. I trust that Bob Wright, Geraldine Dawson and Mark Roithmayr will find nothing offensive in the Homosexuality Speaks press release, but if by chance they do, perhaps they should stop for a moment and ask themselves why.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

For immediate release:

As CDC Issues New Homosexuality Prevalence Report, Homosexuality Speaks Asks “What Will It Take?” for Government to Meet the Challenge of this National Health Crisis

Leading Homosexuality Advocacy Organization Calls for Dramatic Increase in Federal Funding for Research and Services

SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. (December 18, 2009)—In the wake of today's new report from the U.S. Centers for Difference Control (CDC) stating that homosexuality now affects 1 in every 35 American teenagers, Homosexuality Speaks, the nation's largest homosexuality science and advocacy organization, called on the federal government to immediately step up its efforts—and dramatically increase funding—to address the growing national homosexuality public health crisis.

“Now that the government has confirmed that three percent of American teenagers have homosexuality, the question becomes what it will take to get our elected leaders to wake up and take on this crisis in an appropriate way,” said Rob Writeoff, co-founder of Homosexuality Speaks. “Must we wait until every member of Congress has a child or grandchild with homosexuality, or until every household is impacted by this devastating disorder? With nearly 2.25 million children on the homosexuality spectrum, we need meaningful action now that acknowledges the scope of this problem and allocates the resources necessary to take the fight against homosexuality to a new level. We cannot expect the millions of people impacted by this crisis to wait another 20 years for answers.”

The CDC report, published in this week's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), states that 3% or 1 in every 35 teenagers has been diagnosed with homosexuality, including 1 in 25 girls. This represents a staggering 57 percent increase from 2002 to 2006, and a 600 percent increase in just the past 20 years. Other significant findings include that a broader definition of HSDs does not account for the increase, and while improved and earlier diagnosis accounts for some of the increase, it does not fully account for the increase. Thus, a true increase in the risk for HSD cannot be ruled out. Even though parents typically express concerns about their child's sexuality before age twelve, the average age of diagnoses is not until around the sixteenth birthday, although diagnoses are occurring earlier than found in the 2002 study. The report uses the same methodology that produced the CDC's 2007 prevalence findings of 1 in 50 children with homosexuality.

“This study provides strong evidence that the prevalence of homosexuality spectrum disorder is, in fact, dramatically increasing,” said Darlene Gawson, Ph.D., Homosexuality Speaks chief science officer, who noted that recent research indicates that a significant amount of the increase in homosexuality prevalence cannot be explained by better, broader or earlier diagnosis. “It is imperative that the federal government, primarily through the National Institutes of Health and CDC, quickly and significantly increase funding for homosexuality research. We have learned a lot about homosexuality during the past five years. However, most of the critical questions about the factors that cause the many manifestations of homosexuality—and how we can better treat this disorder—remain unanswered.”

“The CDC numbers validate what we already know: We have a major public health emergency on our hands that is taking an enormous toll on millions of families across the country,” said Homosexuality Speaks President Rick Moithrayr. “These families want answers that can only come through further research. They also desperately want access to services that are, at this point, grossly inadequate to meet the current and growing needs of people with homosexuality. That must change quickly, before our society becomes overwhelmed by the demand for these services in the coming years and decades.”

According to a 2007 Yale School of Public Health study, it costs approximately $105 billion each year to care for people with homosexuality—a number that has clearly increased over the past 2 years with the rising prevalence among the youngest people with HSD and a growing demand for housing, work skills and opportunities, healthcare, and other services that simply do not exist for adults with HSD. In FY 2008, total federal spending on homosexuality research was just $177 million, expected to increase to $282 million in FY 2009—only because of a one-time infusion of $89 million in stimulus spending.

“During his campaign, President Obama committed to $1 billion of annual federal spending on homosexuality by 2012. In October, he identified homosexuality as one of his administration's top three public health priorities. This new prevalence data must compel Congress to take action to fulfill the President's promise in the upcoming FY 2011 budget process,” said Writeoff. “It is also vital that any healthcare reform legislation sent by Congress to the President must include—as both the current House and Senate versions do—an end to insurance marketplace discrimination against people with homosexuality by requiring insurers to deliver coverage for behavioral health treatments.”

“There are too many children with homosexuality who are being diagnosed at fifteen, sixteen or even seventeen years of age, which is far too late for them to experience the maximum benefits of early intervention services,” said Gawson. “Clearly, we need to do a better job of diagnosing children as early as possible—ideally by age five. We know that early intervention can make a critical difference in a child's outcome.” Gawson went on to promote her involvement in a recent study which showed that HSD children as young as four years of age, exposed to the Salt Lake City form of early intervention treatment, had follow-up heterosexuality quotient scores ten points higher than HSD children not so favorably placed.

Homosexuality Speaks has committed more than $141 million to date to fund research into the causes, diagnosis and treatment for homosexuality through 2014. It is currently funding research into potential genetic and environmental factors involved with homosexuality, as well as improved methods of early diagnosis and new treatment models.

About Homosexuality

Homosexuality is a complex biological condition that affects a person's ability to procreate and develop appropriate sexual relationships, and is often accompanied by behavioral challenges. A 2009 report by the Centers for Difference Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that homosexuality spectrum disorders are diagnosed in one in 35 or 3% of all teenagers in the United States, affecting two times as many girls as boys. It is estimated that 4.5 million Americans have a homosexuality spectrum disorder. The CDC has called homosexuality a national public health crisis for which we still need effective treatments and whose causes need to be better understood.

About Homosexuality Speaks

Homosexuality Speaks is the nation's largest homosexuality science and advocacy organization, dedicated to funding research into the causes, diagnosis, treatments and a cure for homosexuality; increasing awareness of homosexuality spectrum disorders; and advocating for the needs of individuals with homosexuality and their families. To learn more about Homosexuality Speaks, please visit www.homosexualityspeaks.org.

About the Co-Founders

Homosexuality Speaks was founded in February 2005 by Susie and Rob Writeoff, the grandparents of a child with homosexuality. Rob Writeoff has held lots of important, high-paying positions, and so he (and not homosexual individuals) should be listened to. Susie Writeoff has an extensive history of active involvement in community and philanthropic endeavors, mostly directed toward helping children, and serves on the boards of several non-profit organizations, and so she also (and not homosexual individuals) should be listened to. In 2008, the Writeoffs were named to the Newsweek 200 list of the most influential people in the world for their commitment to global homosexuality advocacy.

End of press release

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Let me add, purely for the edification of Autism Speaks' officials, that autistic individuals are first and foremost human beings, worthy just as they are. Autistic individuals are not harborers of a devastating disorder, and they are not candidates for pity, intervention and eradication. This is a lesson we have been learning, with great difficulty, about homosexual individuals over the past half century, and thus it is disheartening to see organizations like Autism Speaks intent on putting us through that painful process all over again.

Good Science

If science is merely a methodology, then in the current era it has become the preferred method of minutiae and mediocrity.

Think about it. We now live among literally millions and millions of scientists, a large portion of whom practice, in the well-intended words of Ben Goldacre, good science. They dutifully form their hypotheses, they dutifully conduct their experiments, and they dutifully record all their critical data. And when the harvesting time of publication comes around (and when the services of enough well-connected co-authors have been dutifully gathered), these good scientists patiently submit their findings to peer review and wait longingly for reply. In the thousands and thousands of unread journals now clogging our crowded shelves we might find the outpourings of these good scientists' many tireless efforts—their tantalizing insights into fatherless mice, dark halo density profiles, dysfunctional amygdalas, and the priming effects of macrophages. If good science is a blessing, then our cup truly runneth over.

But where, might I ask, is the brilliant science? Where might I find that scientist equivalent to a Newton, a Darwin, an Einstein—each of whom appeared to be far less concerned with following the prescribed recipes of good science than with turning good science upon its head? With millions and millions of good scientists now rubbing their shoulders against us, why is the brilliant science not more abundantly ripe for the picking, and why would we assume this dearth of brilliant science is in no way related to the massive proliferation of good science?

I will say it again: if science is merely a methodology, then in the current era it has become the preferred method of minutiae and mediocrity.

Intelligent Design

William Dembski, he of intelligent design fame, has written a poignant account of taking his autistic son to a gathering run by a popular faith healer, in the hopes of obtaining some miraculous autism healing—a healing which, as events turned out, would not even be offered, let alone consummated. The faith healer of course revealed himself as little more than a conjurer of theater and coinage; and after having endured the multi-hour ordeal of a long drive, a needless wait, blaringly loud music and the insipid amusements of a traveling medicine show, Mr. Dembski's wife and autistic son, summoned at long last to approach the stage for some personal healing and prayer, found themselves more than an hour later effectively shunned and turned away. The entire family drove home bitterly disappointed, if somewhat wiser about the nature of popular revivalist gatherings.

In many ways, Mr. Dembski's account is one of the more moving articles I have read in recent years—and this coming from a man for whom I share hardly a thread of common understanding. But if Mr. Dembski and I share little in the way of a common philosophical background, we do share a commonality of experience, for I too have an autistic son, one of nearly the same age as Mr. Dembski's. Thus I can commiserate completely. In fact, I cannot help but be touched greatly by Mr. Dembski's story and I cannot help but feel within the very depths of my soul the bitter anguish and confusion that must have been experienced during that distressing ordeal. But of course it is not Mr. Dembski's anguish and confusion I am feeling—I am feeling the anguish and confusion that must have been experienced by his autistic son.

It is an oft-told story: salvation was at hand—so remarkably close at hand—if only it had been recognized and accepted.

There was indeed a miracle being offered to Mr. Dembski at that revivalist gathering, a miracle offered so quietly, so humbly, so simply, that amidst all the dancing, all the singing, all the hearty exhortations—and amidst all the tinkling of collection plates—it might have gone so easily overlooked. The miracle being offered to Mr. Dembski on that bitterly ironic night occurred at the very moment of his autistic son's rejection (and how Christianly ironic is that?), just one more rejection in a long line of rejections—from doctors, from school administrators, from nearly the entire human community, and (dare he confess it) from Mr. Dembski himself. But at the very moment of that one further rejection, that forced turning away from this so-called minister of god and the turning back towards a reassessing father—now there was a moment worthy of a hallelujah chorus.

And to Mr. Dembski's credit, at least on this particular occasion, he was not entirely immune to the poignancy and gift of that telling moment. Quietly accepting his autistic son back into the family fold, driving his children home at that ungodly hour, waiting until each had fallen asleep to discuss with his wife the doubts now arising within his troubled soul, Mr. Dembski had taken those first, faltering steps towards the altar of his own salvation—hallelujah, indeed.

But how to encourage him to take all the remaining steps? How to inspire him to face all the challenges yet to come? Do we dare to remind Mr. Dembski that in the story he cares about most, the father does not reject the unwanted son.

If there is an entity deserving of the name “God,” then that entity must exist in the here and now, and I do not mean in the here and now of any particular church, I mean in the here and now of each and every moment. The discovery and acceptance of this world as this world truly is—not as we humans desire or demand it to be—there will be found the glory behind both science and religion. And accepting autism for what it is, welcoming both its offbeat demands as well as its profoundly transformational impact upon the entire human species—there might be found the admittedly narrow path that one day uplifts all mankind.

Let Mr. Dembski begin his reconstructed catechism with that lesson and that lesson alone. And after he has begun to master it, after he has incorporated it deeply within his being, only then might I be willing to sit and talk with him about something called intelligent design.

Three Questions Poorly Asked

What aspect of brain neurology gives rise to human intelligence and reasoning?

What evolutionary mechanism underlies the ascent of human culture and civilization?

What etiology explains the disorder known as autism?

They say that a question well asked is a question already half answered: the examples above show that a question poorly asked cannot be answered at all.

Do Not Walk – Run!

Through February 2010, Royal Society Publishing will be providing free access to its digital archives, and above all else this means that the seminal autism paper, Enhanced Perception in Savant Syndrome: Patterns, Structure and Creativity (Mottron, Dawson, Soulières, 2009, hereafter referred to as EPSS), can now be read in its entirety without it costing you an arm and a couple legs. Please, if you are at all interested in expanding your horizons regarding the nature of autism, avail yourself of this opportunity to read EPSS. In an era when the entirety of the autism research community has become mired in a coagulation of genetic defect theories, brain dysfunction theories, medical imbalance theories, interventions du jour, and so on, reading the pages of EPSS can be like taking a step outdoors into the sunshine and fresh air. Even if you find yourself ultimately unable to accept the various ideas put forth in that paper, at the very least you will have to admit the presentation is not just more of the same old thing. If you want more of the same old thing, there is an interminable glut of autism research articles that can fulfill that need; but if you would like to begin to see autism through a new set of eyes, then the Mottron team's paper is certainly an excellent place to start.

(More of my thoughts regarding EPSS can be found here.)

EPSS is part of a Royal Society Philosophical Transactions B issue devoted entirely to the subject of autism and talent, and if you have time and inclination, I would encourage you to peruse some of the other articles in that issue as well. They are mostly a mixed bag, ranging from the not so bad (the Plaisted Grant and Davis paper, for instance) to the execrable (Casanova et al. and the opening introduction); but more than anything the other articles provide a revealing contrast to the EPSS paper. Note that even in an issue devoted entirely to exploring the talents and abilities of autistic individuals—talents and abilities that in many instances cannot be replicated by non-autistic individuals—even under such a heading, the various authors cannot seem to break themselves free of the paradigm that autism is the evidence of something gone medically wrong. From impaired central coherence to hyper-sensitive hyper-systemizing to “a failure in top-down inhibition,” autism scientists are literally stuck in their language of deficit and defect for explaining autistic characteristics; and at each turn there comes the barely contained whisper that it must be the strangest of happenstance that allows such fouled-up, abnormal cognitions to produce artifacts of human value and wonder. It is only in the pages of EPSS that you will find authors daring to make the opposite assertion, the assertion that autism is not so much the evidence of something gone medically wrong as it is the evidence of something gone humanly right.

I have noted elsewhere that even the Mottron team can have difficulties shaking itself completely free of the vestiges of autism's medical model; but within EPSS, the Mottron team is unabashedly spontaneous, imaginative and creative. The result is a first, solid glimpse into autism not as deficit and disease, but instead as a catalyst for humanity's most shocking and wondrous transformations. Do not miss this historical opportunity. Do not walk, but run! Run to the Royal Society archives!

Apologia

Often what is needed is not new evidence, but a better home for the evidence one already has.

The Philosophy of Academic Philosophy

Do academic philosophers write about anything besides other philosophers? Kripke, Dummett, Foucault, Wright, Rawls, the list goes on and on. Like denizens of a closed-off room, these dilettantes can breathe only their self-made stench.

Open a window, for God's sake! Out in the sunshine you might find Thoreau, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein—all romping about, and giving a rat's ass for their fellow philosophers. But no, behind these heavy curtains we find Dennett, Searle, Rorty—each waxing ad nauseam on...Dennett, Searle, Rorty (not to mention, waxing ad nauseam on Thoreau, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein).

Why would anyone strive to become a philosopher for the purpose of regurgitating other philosophers? Can these professors not think for themselves?

Maybe Derrida, you say—maybe he is the exception. Well, here too we are stuck in the morass of other philosophers, although I admit the approach is unique. But what can it say about modern philosophy to know that its con artists are the most creative?

A Foretold History of Autism Science

It is hard to scale a phantom mountain; inevitably, that climbing party must come back down.

The Divineless Comedy

I suppose it had to come to this, what with the new atheism having become so popular and all. Now we have the Brights movement, and no kidding, you too can register. Hell, what am I saying, I myself can register—apparently I meet all the preconditions.

But Lord have mercy, where is a Kierkegaard when you truly need him? I can hear the Dane laughing already: “And after you have mastered truth is subjectivity—ein, zwei, drei—then you can register as a Bright.”

According to their website, the Brights' first principle (you knew there had to be a first principle) is “We are a constituency of individuals (the registered Brights).” If I were to make a suggestion for a second principle (after registering, of course), it would be “We shalt make closer scrutiny of the words 'constituency' and 'individual,' not to mention a more careful contemplation on the consequences of registration.”

Why Life Is Not a Team Sport

The real conflict is not between science and religion, the real conflict is between collective ignorance and an individual sense of wonder. And in that conflict, Dawkins, the Pope, Behe, Hitchens, Dobson, Harris, Dembski, Grayling, Dennett and the grand ayatollahs are all on the same side.

The Great Distraction

Here is a reminder for the founding members of the Autism Science Foundation, as well as for the many participants on the Autism Hub who seem to think that lobbying against the anti-vaccination crowd is the same thing as lobbying for autistic individuals:

The enemy of one's enemy is not necessarily a friend.

Or let me try a different word of advice, equally applicable to those fervently anti-vaccination and to those who are fervently anti- the anti-vaccination crowd:

Vaccines have nothing to do with autism.

Stretching the Brain

I would like to take a few moments to discuss an autism research paper that was recently published online by the journal Human Brain Mapping. The paper is entitled Enhanced Visual Processing Contributes to Matrix Reasoning in Autism (Soulières, Dawson, Samson, Barbeau, Sahyoun, Strangman, Zeffiro and Mottron, 2009, hereafter referred to as EVP). As best as I can tell, the full text of EVP, like too much of autism research, is not being made reasonably available to the public; however, for those who are interested, an email request to the lead author will likely net you a pdf copy (that is how I obtained mine). As per usual, I am not entirely comfortable commenting at length about a research article that has not been made accessible to all, but as with other works produced by members associated with Laurent Mottron's research team, I feel these efforts are far too valuable and far too relevant to be left unconsidered. (Maybe one day the Mottron team will be in a position to remove itself from the autism publishing grid and present its insightful work more directly to the public, an action I would certainly recommend.)

Before I summarize the experiment at the heart of EVP and its corresponding results, let me note that in doing so I cannot do justice to the paper itself. One of EVP's main strengths is that it is extremely well produced—very thorough in detail, quite readable for a highly technical subject, and generally even-handed in its interpretations and judgments. For those who have not been exposed to the latest techniques in neuroimaging science, I can highly recommend EVP as an excellent example of what the discipline currently has to offer.

In this particular study, Dr. Soulières' team divided the experimental participants into two groups, 15 autistic participants in one group and 18 non-autistic participants in the other group, the two groups otherwise matched on factors of age, sex, Wechsler IQ scores, and manual preference. Soulières' team also rigged up a test-taking mechanism inside an fMRI scanner, with each participant being made to take first a simple pattern-matching test and then a Raven's Progressive Matrices (RPM) test within that mechanism. Soulières' team then compared the test results and the brain scanning images across the two study groups and interpreted the findings.

The experiment and its findings would have remained straightforward if it were not for an unexpected anomaly in the results. Although the autistic and non-autistic groups scored with similar accuracy on the RPM test, the autistic group was about forty percent quicker on average in completing the test. This led to some discussion about how to interpret the surprising result, and it also spurred the Soulières team to look at the fMRI images in two different ways, one designed to factor out the faster performance effect. In the final analysis, the anomaly was taken as a potentially significant, but not yet fully understood phenomenon, and the fMRI images were judged to be mostly unaffected by the between-group differences in performance times. Finally, getting back to what the experiment was originally designed to measure, the Soulières team judged that the fMRI images revealed some small, but significant neuronal differences between the autistic and non-autistic groups when answering RPM questions, and in particular judged that the autistic group seemed to be displaying a potential bias towards increased (enhanced) use of visual processing mechanisms to aid with reasoning tasks.

When I first read the press reports that came out upon publication of EVP, my initial surprise was not that the autistic group was forty percent quicker in answering RPM questions, my initial surprise was that the autistic group was not more accurate in answering RPM questions. The press reports (indeed, the abstract too) suggested that the autistic group had been matched to the non-autistic group on Wechsler scores and yet had performed with similar accuracy on the RPM questions. This would run counter to previous Mottron team findings, in particular those of The Level and Nature of Autistic Intelligence (Dawson, Soulières, Gernsbacher, and Mottron, 2007), which showed that autistic individuals tend to perform relatively better on RPM tests than on Wechsler exams. The details of EVP, however, appear to reveal a slightly different story than is suggested by the press reports and the abstract. On average, the autistic group scored about 101 on the Wechsler full scale, while the non-autistic group scored about 106, and the autistic group scored with about 76% accuracy on RPM, while the non-autistic group scored around 74%. It is not clear to me if these differences add up to statistical significance (and of course the recruitment procedures of EVP might also have skewed the results—although there is nothing in the paper to suggest this possibility), but an eyeball estimate suggests that the findings of Dawson, et al. still hold, and I suppose if we add in the speedier performance of the autistic group in answering the RPM questions, it seems reasonable to say that autistic individuals continue to show relatively better performance on RPM than would be suggested by their full scale Wechsler scores.

Now, about that faster performance finding.

In some respects, the finding that the autistic group was forty percent faster than the non-autistic group in answering RPM questions is a bit of a distraction within EVP. I can certainly understand why the authors included the finding and discussed it at some length—the between-group difference is too large to simply ignore. On the other hand, there are many factors that make it difficult, if not impossible, to draw any meaningful conclusions from the result.

The first problem of course is that RPM is not a timed test. RPM test takers are instructed to take as much time as is deemed necessary to feel reasonably certain about their answers, and these instructions were the ones given to the EVP participants. Furthermore, all the statistical information ever gathered around RPM has been compiled under conditions of a non-timed test, so in a certain sense, it is a violation of the spirit of RPM to even measure the amount of time it takes a participant to answer the questions, let alone report on those measurements. (Or to put it in perspective, a test taker who gets 35 questions correct in an hour is deemed to have performed better than a test taker who gets 34 questions correct in two minutes flat—speed has simply never been a factor in judging RPM performance.) Indeed, perhaps the first thing to do in determining whether EVP's faster performance finding is meaningful would be to repeat the experiment with a different set of instructions—instructions designed to make it clear that time is being measured and that speedier performance is somehow going to be judged as “better”—and see if those instructions affect the overall results. Such an experiment would of course be an even greater violation of the spirit of RPM, although at this point, I would have to say, in for a penny, in for a pound. None of this is meant as criticism, by the way—again, I understand the reasons the EVP authors reported on the finding—but I also want to make it clear that the entire circumstances of the finding are already resting on shaky ground.

If, however, we put aside those concerns momentarily, we can still discuss tentatively what the faster RPM performance from the autistic group is suggesting, and indeed that is the approach the EVP authors have taken. In short, the EVP authors posit that the faster performance might be indicative of an underlying processing “advantage” in the autistic group, one loosely tied to the visual processing differences seen in the fMRI results. At the same time, the authors are upfront about admitting that it is impossible to rule out, without further investigation, other plausible explanations—explanations that would have little to do with any advantages in reasoning skill. I would tentatively concur with such an analysis, but I would also like to consider a few more details than were discussed in the paper itself.

The test-taking conditions in the EVP experiment are highly unusual. Most people do not take an RPM test within the confines of an fMRI scanner. Such conditions are generally uncomfortable—loud and often claustrophobic—and certain individuals, at least after awhile, might feel highly motivated to answer questions quickly and bring the test to an end (God knows, I would feel that way). If it turns out, for instance, that autistic individuals feel this urge more strongly than do non-autistic individuals, that would explain at least in part their relative haste, but it would also have very little to say about their reasoning skills.

At the other end of the significance scale, one plausible explanation for the between-group time difference relates to a finding from another paper several of the EVP authors participated in: Cognitive Differences in Pictorial Reasoning Between High-Functioning Autism and Asperger's Syndrome (Sahyoun, Soulières, Belliveau, Mottron, and Mody, 2009). In short, that paper demonstrates that autistic individuals appear to favor visuospatial processing strategies over semantic or linguistic strategies, more so than would be the case for non-autistic individuals (and more so than would be the case for Asperger's individuals, but it is important to keep in mind that Asperger's individuals were excluded from the EVP study). Although between-group response times were similar on the simple pattern matching test of EVP, one can surmise that such simple and straightforward visual patterns are going to be processed quickly and similarly by all. The RPM questions, however, are an entirely different story. RPM questions are complex and multi-dimensional, enough so that they can be tackled effectively through a variety of strategies. One approach, for instance, would be to try literally to see the patterns emerge; that is, tackle the problems visually. Another approach would be to talk one's way through the problem; e.g., “there are three dots in the upper left in the first square, there are just two dots in the middle in the second square, and so there must be one dot in the lower right in the last square, …”; that is, tackle the problem with a linguistic or semantic strategy (this is the manner in which I would approach RPM problems, for instance). Both strategies, and perhaps others as well, can be effective in determining the correct answer, but given that the RPM test is visually set, it would seem reasonable to surmise that those using a visually based strategy might have a built-in advantage for being quicker, because there is less cognitive translation required for such an effort. (This, by the way, would justify the decision to set RPM as a non-timed test.)

Such an explanation would actually fit in quite nicely with EVP's thesis that autistic individuals rely more heavily on visual processing abilities in the performance of reasoning tasks, but such an explanation would also present the EVP authors with a potentially confounding issue—namely, is the EVP experiment picking up a true autistic versus non-autistic reasoning difference, or is it instead picking up a visuospatial style versus semantic style difference? That question would extend to the fMRI results as well, so it is important to give it some consideration. The fact that autistic individuals may be more visual in their approach to problem solving than non-autistic individuals is certainly interesting and significant, but I am not sure that by itself it captures what is frequently meant by autistic versus non-autistic reasoning skills. If, for instance, visually-oriented non-autistic individuals show similar performance and fMRI patterns as autistic individuals, then the whole notion that EVP is capturing a true autistic versus non-autistic reasoning difference becomes far more doubtful.

In the end, the 40% greater efficiency finding, although much ballyhooed in the press reports, still represents little more than a tempting sideshow at the moment, with a whole host of possibilities lined up to account for the surprising result. Perhaps Dr. Soulières' team will in the future have the opportunity to explore the discovery in greater detail, and maybe then we can draw some more definitive conclusions.

And now back to the regularly scheduled programming.

The main purpose of EVP is to compare autistic versus non-autistic brain activity during the performance of a complex reasoning task. This is in keeping with the vernacular that the autistic brain is somehow “wired” differently, and in particular, EVP explores the hypothesis that autistic individuals make greater use of perceptual (especially visual) neural processing mechanisms during cognitive tasks.

There is an interesting historical background to this hypothesis that I want to take some time to recall. In 2006, an unusual paper was published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders called Enhanced Perceptual Functioning in Autism: an Update, and Eight Principles of Autistic Perception (Mottron, Dawson, Soulières, Hubert, Burack, 2006, hereafter referred to as EPF). I say unusual, because EPF is perhaps the most schismatic research paper I have yet to encounter. If one were to remove principles 6 and 7 (and to some extent, principle 5) from that paper, all that would remain is a straightforward description of autistic cognition as biased towards local processing and detail discrimination, possibly caused by a different brain structure biased towards enhanced perceptual processing. This is an interesting and somewhat novel approach, yet it is not all that different in kind from other research-oriented descriptions of autistic behavior and cognition, and is not all that applicable in a broader and anthropological sense. But injected right into the middle of this rather dry description of autistic psychiatry and neurology comes suddenly a fascinating use of the characteristics of savant syndrome to highlight the distinctive perceptual characteristics of autistic thinking, replete with an enlightening new emphasis on the role that environmental patterns, symmetries and structure can play in the development and presentation of savant and autistic cognition. Furthermore, this discussion of principles 6 and 7 takes on an entirely different tone from the rest of the paper, for suddenly gone is the over reliance on psychiatric and experimental literature, and in its place is substituted a more conceptual description of autistic perception and cognition. In the modern sense of the word, this discussion is less “scientific” than the rest of EPF, but it is also demonstrably more fruitful and broadly applicable, to the point of being anthropologically stunning. In EPF, principles 6 and 7 appear like a bolt from the blue.

I have written elsewhere about these two aspects of EPF (one aspect which I have clearly enjoyed, one aspect which I am less thrilled about), but it is important to note that if in the year 2006, EPF was like a cell getting ready to divide, by 2009 that division has been thoroughly accomplished. Members associated with Laurent Mottron's research team have published two significant papers this year. First, in Enhanced Perception in Savant Syndrome: Patterns, Structure, and Creativity (Mottron, Dawson, Soulières, 2009, hereafter referred to as EPSS), the team has put together a more complete reflection upon EPF's principles 6 and 7, backed now by a richer catalog of case studies, but still essentially a conceptual description of autistic perception, as opposed to being a scientific hypothesis supported by a plethora of experimental evidence. In contrast, they have also published EVP, the paper under discussion here, one that more clearly aligns to those aspects of EPF that were concentrated on the psychiatry and neurology behind enhanced perceptual processing, an effort now being supported in the most direct manner possible by the techniques of experimental science.

Of course, it is possible the members of the Mottron team do not appreciate my attempts to divide their work so thoroughly down the middle—I suspect they might see their two recent papers as simply different views onto a model they conceive of as constituting a whole. But I want to insist upon making the distinction, because from my point of view I see one of these approaches as holding the potential for providing abundant knowledge about the nature of autism—as well as providing abundant knowledge about the nature of mankind—whereas I see the other approach leading mostly to a scientific dead end. Since I have already written abundantly and effusively about the unlimited value to be found inside the pages of EPSS, let me now correspondingly add my reasons for believing that the findings of EVP hold a high likelihood of leading nowhere.

The problem is not with EVP itself. As I have said, EVP is extremely well done, and in many respects we owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Soulières and her team for demonstrating the leading edge of what neuroimaging has to offer for providing an affirmative description of the characteristics of the autistic brain. That I believe these efforts ultimately reveal very little is to be attributed more directly to the shortcomings of neuroscience itself—and neuroimaging in particular—disciplines that, despite their widely advertised promise, are constructed upon logical foundations that are dubious at best. Therefore let me use the findings of EVP to explore the current state of neuroimaging science, and let me see if the discipline really has that much to offer in the way of helping us narrow in on the qualities of autistic intelligence and reasoning. There are many logical and conceptual problems I might list, but let me start with just these:

The neural activity of autistic and non-autistic individuals is far more similar than it is different, a fact that is not given its true weight in assessments of the brain's role in human cognitive tasks. EVP admits to the large overall similarity between autistic and non-autistic neural activity during RPM tasks, but since it does so with only a single sentence or two, and then devotes its remaining sentences to a thorough analysis of the subtle distinctions, I think it is important to take a step back and put things in proper perspective. If we are to believe the assumption that the brain is the primary source of reasoning/intelligence activities, then all neural activity observed during a reasoning task must be given its due weight, and on that basis alone, we would have to conclude that autistics and non-autistics cognate in essentially the same manner, the differences being slight at best. That is what the overall fMRI evidence strongly suggests.

Of course, there are known domains in which marginal differences can be important, but that tends to happen only when the entity under study leverages a much larger context. That larger context, however, is exactly what modern neuroscience does not consider. Cognitive scientists study the human brain so intensely because for them the human brain is the alpha and omega of human cognitive activity—all the secrets are to be found within the confines of the human skull. In consequence, cognitive scientists are left with an overriding conundrum of how to explain wholesale cognitive distinctions on the basis of only minor-scale neural differences. That conundrum is on full display in EVP.

Neuroimaging technology is still extremely crude, its expense notwithstanding. A nice touch within the EVP paper is its inclusion of a set of fMRI composites, pictures that might easily dazzle the reader if they were not by comparison—comparison to the pictures of a disposable camera, for instance—so incredibly crude. Indeed, such a comparison is extremely apt, for a tourist taking snapshots of the Parthenon, let's say, can record a wealth of accurate detail about human intelligence and reasoning—structure, pattern, style, history, and the like; and although neuroscientists no doubt desire to reveal a similar set of cognitive characteristics, even at a more nuanced level of detail, it is hard to make those kinds of distinctions when dealing with little more than a collection of colorful blobs.

I suspect the reason most people are dazzled by fMRI pictures, and the reason most scientists place such incredible faith in their fMRI results—despite the obvious coarseness of the data—is because the technology is so darned sophisticated and new, not to mention so darned expensive; technology costing that much and qualifying as a genuine modern medical marvel must surely have something significant to impart. But of course such reasoning is not an example of brilliant science: it is instead a textbook example of a logical fallacy. The price and sophistication of the equipment has nothing to do with the value of its output; only the quality of the resulting data can have a bearing on its importance, and on that basis, neuroimaging still has an incredibly long ways to go.

It is easy to confuse neural difference with neural causation, a mistake neuroscientists will make at the drop of a hat. Let me demonstrate with an analogy. Imagine a tribe of people in which a small minority of children are trained from birth to become high jumpers. They practice, they work with weights, they compete—a good portion of their early life is devoted to gaining an extra defiance of the planet's gravity. Then a naïve group of researchers decides to study this tribe of people, and in particular wishes to discover what turns some of these people into such unusually prodigious leapers. They do this study by performing muscle scans on comparison groups of high jumpers versus non-high jumpers as the participants progress through a series of physical activities, and the published findings reveal that the high jumping group has some small but significant differences in their quadricep, hamstring and calf muscle systems.

Now if the researchers stopped there, there would be no problem: they are simply reporting the data. But of course we know the researchers will not stop there, we know precisely what is coming next. The researchers will then announce, with great fanfare, that the muscle distinctions they have discovered in the high jumping group are the actual cause of the high jumping phenomenon. (And if we were to extend this analogy to autism science, the researchers would next propose some surgical procedures whereby to remove the muscle differences and return the high jumpers back to normal.)

The crux of the Mottron team's enhanced perceptual functioning hypothesis turns on whether that hypothesis is meant as a description or an explanation. A description I would not mind at all, but an explanation I object to vehemently. It is not always clear to me where the Mottron team stands on this distinction, but if the title of EVP is to be given any weight, then I suspect the team is tilting in the wrong direction.

Few people would disagree that autistics and non-autistics cognate differently, and so neural differences are certainly to be expected (indeed, perhaps the most surprising finding in EVP is the neural similarity observed on the simple pattern matching task). But of course autistics cognate differently right from birth, and so when we take fMRIs of their brain activity many years later, we have no way of easily assessing whether we are observing neural causes or neural effects. Under the circumstances, I would think the latter would get initial preference, but then again, I am not a neuroscientist.

The lack of any plausible mechanism connecting neural activity to observable cognitive behavior allows neuroscientists unfettered creativity in explaining their results. Scientists, quite rightly, dismiss the vaccines-causes-autism hypothesis by noting there is no plausible mechanism connecting the ingredients and actions of vaccines with the observable behaviors of autistic individuals. Then those very same scientists will turn right around and promote the output of their neuroimaging studies as explanations for certain types of observable cognitive activity. Simply amazing.

Near the end of EVP, in the section entitled “Origin of Neural Differences in Matrix Reasoning Between Autistics and Non-Autistics,” the EVP authors attempt to explain how their neural findings might give rise to certain types of autistic cognitive behavior. They do this mostly by appealing to the findings of other neuroscience studies, studies focused on such things as white matter microstructure and functional connectivity differences, studies which have found that autistic individuals seem to have less neural connectivity between, for instance, the prefrontal and occipital regions of the brain. The authors then lend their support to some theorizing that suggests this reduced connectivity produces compensatory activity in perceptual mechanisms, leading perhaps to a unique autistic cognitive signature. All this sounds scientific enough, but note what would happen if, for the sake of argument, the other neuroscience studies had found something entirely different, for instance that autistics had an overabundance of connectivity between the prefrontal and occipital regions. Would this turn everyone's theorizing around 180 degrees? Well, of course not, not at all. What would then happen is that we would get some kind of explanation about how the abundant connectivity was too much, too overwhelming, producing the equivalent of a neural traffic jam, and the compensatory activity of the perceptual mechanisms was therefore like taking an alternative route to work. In point of fact, it would not matter if autistics displayed under-connectivity, over-connectivity, or had their synapses tied together with pink, curly bows, neuroscientists would use whatever they found to cook up some type of explanation about the differential cognitive activity of autistic individuals. And what, you ask, could possibly give rise to such an unlimited degree of explanatory freedom? Well, what gives rise to this phenomenon is that neuroscientists have no plausible mechanism linking the neural activity they measure in their studies to the observable cognitive behavior of actual human beings. The conceptual gap here is at least as wide as that between thimerosal and autism—perhaps much wider—and into the space of that gap neuroscientists feel free to insert whatever convenient explanation they like. And boy do they ever!

Neuroscience remains blissfully ignorant of human history, and in particular remains blissfully ignorant of the Flynn effect. This seems to be a blind spot for all of neuroscience, but is particularly relevant for the experiment conducted in EVP. The type of intelligence being measured with RPM has undergone a rapid increase through the latter half of the twentieth century, an increase almost certainly experienced by both the autistic and non-autistic populations (indeed, experienced by all human populations). Furthermore, as I have pointed out elsewhere, there is no reason to believe the Flynn effect is restricted to the twentieth century alone: how well can we expect an average human to have scored on an RPM-type test say ten thousand years ago? No, the Flynn effect has been with humanity since at least the time of the great leap forward, and so any direct observations being made of human intelligence and reasoning—even neuroimaging observations—are observations of a phenomenon that, historically speaking, has been exceptionally non-static.

Thus do we want to insist that we can literally see human reasoning and intelligence within the biology of the human brain? How are we to accommodate evolutionarily static brain biology to an historically non-static Flynn effect? And note that these problems are actually doubled in EVP, which by positing two different neural reasoning mechanisms for the human brain, one autistic and one not, leaves the biological problem of the Flynn effect now to be answered times two.

Yes, there is observable neural activity during the performance of an RPM task, but does that neural activity equate to human reasoning and intelligence? The evidence of the Flynn effect votes a resounding no.

Nearly all the above-listed problems can be traced to one overriding logical fallacy, namely the unquestioned acceptance that human brain activity is sufficient to explain human cognitive functioning. The widespread belief in this assumption competes only with the notion that evolution explains every biological and cultural process for being modern science's greatest logical misstep. Such widespread belief is, to put it simply, a clear and massive instance of assuming what needs to be shown.

I have tried to demonstrate in several places (for instance here and here) that much of human cognition—intelligence, learning, language, etc.—can be more accurately and more fruitfully described by appealing not to the workings of the human brain, but instead by appealing to the fast-changing, self-constructed form of the human environment (and the members of the Mottron team too have been making that demonstration within the pages of EPSS—whether they realize it or not). I am open to a valid criticism of that argument, just as I am open to any effective demonstration of neural causation for human cognitive activity. But when the debate is always conducted as though the answer is already known, I find it nearly impossible to achieve any meaningful progress.

I am not certain where this unquestioned reliance on the human brain has come from. Perhaps it has originated out of those case studies where someone has been damaged in a section of their brain (Broca's Area, for example) and has correspondingly lost a portion of their cognitive functioning (their speech, for instance). But I assure you, if I yank someone's heart from out of their chest, they will also lose a good portion of their cognitive activity, but that does not justify my making the cardiovascular system the ultimate explanation for human reasoning and intelligence. It is hard to believe so many scientists cannot make the proper distinction between the concepts of necessity and sufficiency, but sad to say, when it comes to human cognition and the human brain, that mistake is nearly universal.

In conclusion, I confess to some ambivalence when I see Dr. Soulières, Dr. Mottron, and the rest of their colleagues listed as authors on an autism-specific neuroimaging study. On the one hand, they are doing me an immense favor, for a brain-specific approach to describing autistic cognition presents a sharp challenge to many of my own ideas about autism, a challenge that, in the interest of achieving greater acuity, I gladly welcome. And since I do not have the resources or means (or desire, for that matter) to conduct such studies myself, I am pleased to see them being conducted by scientists whose intelligence and integrity I can trust. The members of the Mottron team have built a rich history of providing positive, creative and informative insights into the nature of autism, and to the extent any neuroimaging approach might advance our understanding of the autistic brain, I suspect that team will achieve the goal as well as any other. EVP's authors are to be congratulated for their careful and considered effort.

But on the other hand, from a more practical point of view, I know time and resources are limited, and there are still so many autistic individuals in need of a greater understanding. The poignancy here is that the Mottron team has already developed an alternative approach to describing autism that possesses nearly unlimited potential for providing greater insight. Outside the confines of mainstream autism science, and outside the confines of the human skull, the Mottron team has been advancing an understanding of autistic individuals through an appeal to the autistic cognitive environment, an environment best described through the surrounding presence of pattern, structure and form. In my opinion, that effort possesses no discernible bounds: it holds promise for describing autistic individuals as they truly are, and it holds promise for revealing the remarkable influence of autistic cognition upon the entire human species.

If the Mottron team wishes to supplement these excellent ideas by exploring neuroscience as well, it is not for me to make an objection. But I hope they will at least consider my challenges to the foundations of neuroscience; I hope they will at least consider that a brain-based approach is almost certainly going to be more limited. The glory of autistic individuals, including the glory of their surprising impact upon the human population, is to be discovered in the abundance of their surrounding cognitive circumstances, and not in what exists inside their heads.

The Context of Neuroimaging

One does not understand an accounting program by taking electronic measurement of all the chips, wires and disks. Strangely enough, one needs to know something about accounting before any of those readings make sense.

The Massive Hunt

As we approach an ever more accurate assessment of autism's prevalence within the human population, the cry grows ever more shrill to identify autism's environmental cause. Never mind that we have been searching diligently for that cause for more than a decade now and have yet to find its first trace. Never mind all that, because autism has unquestionably reached an epidemic stage, and with autism such a devastating illness, especially untreated, we could not have overlooked its devastating consequences in all the years before (and no, there is no need to question such obvious assumptions). Look harder, look faster: autism's environmental cause has to be there.

In the late nineteenth century, scientists embarked on a massive hunt for the luminiferous ether. Never mind that they had been searching diligently for the ether for quite some time and had yet to find its first trace. Never mind all that, because light's properties were unquestionably those of waves, and with the characteristics of space, time and energy so well understood, the absence of a propagating medium was something quite unthinkable (and no, there was no need to question such obvious assumptions). The scientists looked harder, looked faster: the luminiferous ether had to be there.

The Massive Hunt Redux

While we are on the topic of searches both far and wide, let me highlight again the bad news for those who have made finding the genetic cause of autism their life's pursuit: when Mark Blaxill can legitimately blow a hole in your most advanced research, you know something about your assumptions has gone horribly wrong.

(By the way, has anyone discovered yet how to get Mr. Blaxill to apply his analytic prowess to his own irrational theories?)

Carving Up the Spectrum

Harold Doherty yearns for the day when the autism spectrum can be amputated of all who do not meet his personal criteria for being low-functioning and severe. But note how odd his argument sounds when juxtaposed to the very evidence Mr. Doherty calls on his own behalf. Mr. Doherty says: the “I Am Autism” video is directed at the depiction of some of the harsh realities that often accompany Autistic Disorder.

But in point of fact, that video contradicts Mr. Doherty's yearning. “I Am Autism” presents a fairly sizable number of individuals, and I am certain if their diagnoses were checked, not all would have Autistic Disorder. More than likely, the individuals presented in the “I Am Autism” video would represent quite the range of current outcomes—from those Mr. Doherty might characterize as low-functioning or severe, to those many would agree are high functioning, or perhaps even (gasp) Aspergers.

Ironically enough, it is the producers of “I Am Autism” who gather these individuals under the common heading of autism. It is the producers of “I Am Autism” who see no reason to make any distinction. For them, autism of any kind is something inherently evil—something to be battled against and eradicated forthwith.

It is true, Mr. Doherty, that the producers of “I Am Autism” would indeed amputate from the autism spectrum all who do not meet your personal criteria for being low-functioning and severe. But they are not going to stop just there—they are going to amputate all the rest.