Prevalence of clinically and empirically defined talents and strengths in autism.
Outstanding skills, including special isolated skills (SIS) and perceptual peaks (PP) are frequent features of autism. However, their reported prevalence varies between studies and their co-occurrence is unknown. We determined the prevalence of SIS in a large group of 254 autistic individuals and searched for PP in 46 of these autistic individuals and 46 intelligence and age-matched typically developing controls. The prevalence of SIS among autistic individuals was 62.5% and that of PP was 58% (13% in controls). The prevalence of SIS increased with intelligence and age. The existence of an SIS in a particular modality was not associated with the presence of a PP in the same modality. This suggests that talents involve an experience-dependent component in addition to genetically defined alterations of perceptual encoding.
The University of Montreal Center of Excellence for Pervasive Developmental Disorders (CETEDUM), Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies, 7070 Perras Blvd., Montreal, QC, H1E 1A4, Canada, ameilleur009@gmail.com.
Andrée-Anne S
AA
Meilleur
Patricia
P
Jelenic
Laurent
L
Mottron
D000328:Adult; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology; D001076:Aptitude; D001307:Auditory Perception; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult