IS INTELLIGENCE A DESEASE ?

Aspergers Syndrome (High Functioning Autism)

The term Asperger’s Syndrome^1(AS), first coined by UK psychologist Lorna Wing, was recorded almost at the same time, independently, by Leo Kanner of the Johns Hopkins University (in 1943) and a paediatrician Hans Asperger in Vienna (in 1944)^2. The curious set of behaviours in children having this abnormality was a marked inability to make friends and to socially interact as “normal” children do. People with AS have trouble perceiving the intentions or emotions of other people, due to a tendency to ignore or misinterpret such cues as facial expression, body language, and vocal intonation. They may appear awkward or rude, and unintentionally upset others. They also have restricted patterns of behaviour, activities, interests and impaired nonverbal behaviors in areas such as eye contact, facial expression, posture, and gestures. However unlike autism, people with AS are not withdrawn and do interact socially albeit in an awkward fashion such as engaging in long winded one-side conversations in their narrow field of interests without any regard to their listener’s feelings.

People with AS typically demonstrate behavior, interest and activities that are restricted, repetitive and abnormally focused. In fact, the pursuit or obsession with a narrow range of interest in a specific area, is one of the more pronounced features of people with AS. Their intense, narrow, time-consuming personal interests, sometimes eccentric in nature, usually results in social isolation, or interfere with the completion of everyday tasks. On the positive side, some interests can lead to social connection and even careers. For example, there are children and adults with an encyclopaedic knowledge of cars or an obsession with coding software. However, this obsession is usually within a specific part rather than the whole or larger picture.

Further, people afflicted with AS exhibit a clear dislike for any change in their normal routine. In fact they crave routine. Also, they usually demonstrate inflexibility and resistance to change. Change may trigger anxiety, while familiar objects, settings, and routines offer reassurance. This usually results in difficulty transitioning from one activity to another, from one class to another, from work time to lunch, or even from talking to listening. Moving to a new school, new town, or new social role can be an enormous challenge. People with AS have extreme sensitivity, to sights, sounds, smells, tastes, or textures. However many outgrow these sensory issues at least to some extent as they mature.

High Intelligence & Asperger’s Syndrome

Recent studies seem to show that people with AS typically compensate their “disabilities” with traits that often could be considered as above average:
Normal to very high intelligence
Good verbal skills, including rich vocabularies
Originality and creativity including a propensity for “thinking outside the box”
Honesty and ingenuity
Careful attention to details
Strong work ethic, with particular attention to accuracy and quality of work

Special interests that can be tailored toward productive work or hobbies; individuals with AS who have intensive knowledge in one or more specific areas can channel their expertise toward new discoveries and creations in their chosen field.Keen senses allow some people with AS to see, hear or feel subtle changes in the environment that others do not, resulting in phenomenal powers of observation.
In an article in the BBC in 2003^3 scientists at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities, surmised that both Einstein and Isaac Newton may have had AS. Einstein displayed signs of AS a child, being a loner with extreme if not obsessive interests at a young age. Newton hardly spoke and was so engrossed with his work that at times he forgot to eat and was often bad-tempered with the few friends that he had. Both had intense focus in specific areas of interest. Both had difficulty in interacting in social situations and were poor communicators. But both physicists are also considered by many of their peers to be the giants in their respective fields of physics, if not outright geniuses.

In one of Dr. Temple Grandin’s articles “Genius May be and Abnormality”^4 she postulates that genius may be an abnormal condition. For example, there are 2.5 times as many engineers in families of people with autism than the norm (Dr. Grandin’s family includes several). In fact in some circles in Silicon Valley, AS is called the “the engineers’ disorder”. This postulate seems to agree with an article in Wired magazine in December 2001^2, which posits a link between the higher incidence of AS in children of Engineers and computer professionals in Silicon Valley. What was once thought to be a rare affliction in the range on one in 10,000 appears to be 20 times more in the state of California. A familiar joke in the industry it seems is that for the many hard-core programmers working for IT firms such as Intel, Silicon Graphics, Adobe who come to work early and leave late, confining themselves in their cubicles coding for hours could very well be residing somewhere in the domain of Asperger’s Syndrome themselves. It seems that even Bill Gates is frequently diagnosed in the press. His seemingly single minded focus on the smallest technical detail, rocking motions and flat tone of voice are all indicative of an adult with AS. That is probably why now AS is also known as “The Geek Syndrome”.
This is further reinforced by Simon Baron-Cohen who spent 2 decades studying autism^5. He found some evidence (in 1997) of a link between autism in children and a propensity for engineering in their parents. In a study of about 1000 families^6,7 where autism occurs they found that the occurrence of an engineer in the family was about 12% (28% in another study)^10 compared to the general population which was about 5%. A disproportion of about 2 and a half times, compared with the general population. In his 1997^10 study he goes on to postulate that the data collated suggests that AS doesn’t strike at random and may occur in families that have a genetic predisposition to such offspring, i.e. families with engineers.
In relation to giftedness, it has been reported that members of Mensa (IQ > 148 SD24) have been found to have three to six times the normal frequency of autistic siblings and children (Sofaer & Emery, 1981)^8,9. Indeed in a study by Henderson, Lynette M. (22 June 2001) the prevalence of giftedness among those afflicted with AS seems to be higher than that compared to the general population10.

A recent survey study in Cambridge^11, carried out on 378 mathematics undergraduates and 414 students in control disciplines (medicine, law, social science). The results seem to suggest a link between systemizing capabilities and autism. Simon Baron Cohen found that the main features of the autistic spectrum are impaired empathizing concurrent with intact or even superior systemizing. Systemizing being “the drive to analyse” and/or build a system (of any kind) based on identifying input operation-output rules. Engineering, mathematics, music, architecture, and biology are all clear examples of systemizing. It seems that that the genes underlying autism are not always only associated with just social disability but may also be associated with talent or enhanced abilities in non-social fields.

Recent Neurobiological Understanding

Studies^12 done in the past 30 years at Harvard Medical school on brain tissue of autistic individuals that passed away at ages ranging from 5 to 74 revealed abnormalities in the limbic system which includes the amygdala (the brain’s primitive emotional centre ) and the hippocampus (an area of the brain responsible for memory). These appear small and immature compared to normal.

Another abnormality discovered by neuroscientist Eric Courchesne, of the University of California at San Diego is the unusually small number of Purkinje cells in the cerebellum which are critical for data integration by receiving large mounts of information from the outside world and preparing the other areas of the brain to respond to appropriately. What he found recently by brain imaging studies, is that autistic children by the age of 2 to 3 show unusual growth of the brain to a size much larger than normal packed with grey matter of the cerebral cortex and the fibrous white matter that provides the connections between the cerebral cortex and other parts of the brain including the cerebellum. Courchesne surmizes that what leads to autism may be an otherwise normal process that switches on too early or too strongly and shuts off too late and that process would be controlled by genes.

Asperger’s Syndrome vs High Functioning Autism

Many still considered AS part of the continuum on the autism spectrum i.e. High Functioning Autism (HFA). However recent studies using MRI imaging at Stanford University^13 reveals that there were no difference in total cerebral volume (grey and white matter) between subjects with AS and HFA nor were there differences between subjects with AS and the control group with who were not afflicted with either AS or HFA. However the amount of grey matter was highest among HFA, intermediate among AS subjects and lowest amongst the control group, suggesting an increasing volume of grey matter with the severity of the condition. When neuropsychological testing (verbal and performance IQ tests) were carried out it seems that the continuum breaks down with large discrepancies in the performance between the 2 groups (HFA & AS). Subjects afflicted with AS in general have unimpaired linguistic development. The testing suggest that AS and HFA may be may be clinically and neurobiologically different from each other.

The above data and studies to date are however inconclusive but does tend to infer a connection between AS (and HFA) and intelligence. It may be the beginnings of the stream of more conclusive evidence that link AS with another form or state of the human brain that is not defective but simply different and even enhanced in some specific areas (such as engineering and computing), although these somewhat increased abilities are uneven or or asynchronous. A different type of ”wiring” if you like.

It a way, it seems a bit ironic that although our cultures readily accept that some people exhibit superior physical abilities, yet they seem reluctant to do the same for intelligence albeit if it comes as part of the package with social ineptness or with a perceived ”disability” (for anything outside of the accepted ”norms”of behaviour). The increasing numbers of those afflicted, whether natural or environmentally induced tends to suggest that it may be part of evolution or even human development. Hence rather that treating these people as outcasts or weirdos, we should be coming up with ways to understand them better, ways to utilize their intelligence for the benefit of society.

Asperger's Syndrome may be just a fancy way of calling the class genius a ”geek”.
Notes: This article is simply the author’s opinion and interpretation of the various studies and research done by experts on Asperger’s Syndrome and High Functioning Autism, and in no way represents the author’s “original work” nor does it represent the views and opinions of Hong Kong Mensa or it’s members.


1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome
2. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aspergers_pr.html
3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2988647.stm
4. http://www.autism.com/individuals/genius.htm
5. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/baron-cohen.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=
6. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s13209.htm
7. http://www.autismresearchcentre.com/docs/papers/1997_BCetal_Engineer.pdf
8. http://cogprints.org/4664/1/AUTTHEO(cog.pdf - page 8
9. http://jmg.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/18/6/410
10. http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-27110020_ITM
11. http://www.springerlink.com/content/21t03377610752g0/
12. http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2002/0715/autism/scautism3.html
13. http://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/savant_syndrome/savant_articles/aspergers