As we begin to understand more of the parallels between autism and scientific reasoning, it comes as less of a surprise that people with autism completed Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM), which measures hypothesis testing, problem-solving, and learning, up to 40% faster than controls matched for IQ.
Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices Evaluate Problem-Solving Abilities
According to the researchers, the participants with autism and the healthy controls were equally successful at solving the RSPM items, but the participants with autism completed the problems more rapidly and relied more on the perceptual parts of the brain while solving the problems.
These findings are reminiscent of other work suggesting that the minds of elite scientists and those of people with autism show some similarities. Manuel Casanova and his colleagues found minicolumn structure in three distinguished scientists without autism that was similar to people with autism. Simon Baron-Cohen and his colleagues have reported a number of instances in which people with autism show superior perceptual performance, such as in the Embedded Figures Test.
One of the implications of this research is that the cognitive capacities of individuals with autism should not be underestimated, and that approaching learning with an emphasis on their unique perceptual abilities should be beneficial.
3 Comments
V i x · June 23, 2009 at 1:21 pm
This was interesting. Thank you for writing this blog post. It helped me a lot.
Stephmena · November 30, 2009 at 4:58 pm
It’s interesting that autistic people were able to complete tha activity faster than the controlled group. It makes you wonder if you were to continue to study using this a reference maybe there cold be a better understanding of how autistic people thin kand feel. To be able to complete something that most people would never even think about doing, is an interesting achievment.
alyssa.fantin · February 26, 2010 at 6:11 pm
I think that the underlying message from this reasearch is rather important. The cognitive capacities of individuals with autism definitely should not be underestimated. I remember having a health class with an autistic male teenager during my senior year of high school. I was blown away by the fact that he was able to answer any answer the teacher asked the class, and was even able to answer the questions our teacher could not. It was incredibly impressive.
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