There are no other cases of autism diagnosed in the immediate family. If we take the Ronemus and Gardner studies seriously, the answer seems to be yes. ASD core diagnostic symptoms are not uniquely linked and are only very rarely expressed without nondiagnostic symptoms. Strongly agree. no IQb + low genetic load : high intelligence, sociable, not so technically inclined (3) Genes that promote autism and IQ are being selected for DESPITE other genes that promote IQ being selected AGAINST, so we would expect to see the representation of autism in (the dwindling fraction of) high-IQ families explode in the coming decades. Shes unable to work in a normal public school classroom, but luckily we have a charter school that specializes in children with autism that has worked well for her. Even when adults with autism live outside the family, their families especially their mothers have extensive contact and involvement in their care. Im very open to people arguing the contrary, but I must say, in 8 years of doing abstract mathematics, I never met an Asperger-like person where giftedness did not seem to be part of the equation. Another study showing how autistic people have higher prevalence in inpatient psychiatric units. It sounds very plausible that the effect of gene variant a and the effect gene variant b alone tweak the machinery in a way that increases its capabilities, but when applied together, they could have a catastrophic collision. a sort of arrangement where if you pick up to four of them you get enhanced intelligence, five or six and you get high-functioning intelligent autism, and seven or more and your brain crashes on boot-up and the autism stops you from functioning. I then play out both parts of the conversation from memory as their mouth gapes open.). Say you are a bright nerdy tech-aligned person who is attracted to other bright nerdy tech-aligned people; you have a medium preference for eventually having kids but you really dont want an autistic child. Dunno, but you dont need to know the exact structure of the genotype to phenotype map to check whether the assumption is empirically correct. The lectins in wheat interfere with leptin receptors, making people leptin resistant and therefore obese. For such individuals, perfect pitch is almost always the indicator that highly refined processing is available in these areas of immediate reception of sound. What are the percentages of children who fall in each group? After further consideration, Im unaware of any phenomenon which would correspond to a low-function, low-intelligence version. Autism, rationality and intelligence. I spent a lot of time reading about giftedness (having a IQ > 130) in the last few months, specifically educating gifted kids and teenagers, and I found out quite some things about how giftedness can interact with social ability: It turns out that giftedness can be quite a burden for children and teenagers, as not many of their peers can relate to them and vice versa. 4. In sum, these findings suggest that neurodevelopmental social impairment exists in varied forms with varied etiologies and varied pathophysiologies, but the ASD diagnostic criteria do not identify a valid entity, Link to the entire piece https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s40489-016-0085-x.pdf. But if you want to redefine incredible to mean the top 0.1 percent of the population, then yes, Bugmasters guess would be roughly accurate: Thered be approximately 1,250 people who were both incredibly smart and incredibly charismatic in the Western world, or maybe 1,500-2,000 if you assume a minor positive correlation between being intelligence and being socially adept. Being a carrier for cystic fibrosis may be protective against cholera. That seems like a poor methodology; I think it would be better to start with an unbiased sample of the general population and test them for both autism and IQ. I dont think its quite that and even if it were, it would be really mysterious if double sickle cell genes caused more malaria! It could be that geniuses are less visible with more obscure achievements because they work behind-the-scenes at institutions, whether universities or corporations. In Iceland., https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/01/10/1612113114.full. This probably calls for some elaboration. This is reminiscent, and logically inverted, from the much greater role of spontaneous mutations in these latter categories, particularly in genes known to have an even larger impact in cohorts ascertained for intellectual disability/developmental delay91. More generally, to relate to those people around you who are also bright. In other countries including those in developed areas like Western Europe and North America IQ has been on the rise. Support Slate Star Codex on Patreon. Arizone State University Autism symptoms reduced nearly 50% two years after fecal transplant Wheat has been genetically modified recently in ways that make it much worse for you. [3] In most GWAS studies there has been little evidence of heterogeneity of association across phenotypic subgroups. If the IQ/autism risk genes are being selected for, we should be seeing more top-level geniuses each generation (Im very skeptical of this) and more autistic children (this half checks out). For, Then Against, High-Saturated-Fat Diets I mean, it COULD be that autism somehow exaggerates male brain characteristics in a bunch of different respects, but then doesnt touch the parts of the brain that affect gender identity. What do SSC readers think? This seemed to balance out by late middle-school/early high-school. Theres a new paper out on how the frequency of variants that affect educational achievement (which also affect IQ) have been changing over time in Iceland. We just rarely see them because they dont hang out with us losers.