ArticleFrontiers in neuroscience2016
Autism As a Disorder of High Intelligence.
Article in Frontiers in neuroscience, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 63 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
63 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Behavioral and Socio-Emotional Disorders in Intellectual Giftedness: A Systematic Review.Child psychiatry and human development · 2024Pooled it
- The association between maternal infection and intellectual disability in children: A systematic review and meta-analysis.PloS one · 2023Pooled it
- The "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" Test in Autism-Spectrum Disorders Comparison with Healthy Controls: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2019Pooled it
- Exploring the significance of fatty acid-binding protein 4 levels as a biomarker for autism spectrum disorder: a cross-sectional study.BMC psychiatry · 2026Article
- Beyond Comorbidity: Evolutionary Insights Into the Concomitance of Neurodivergence, Major Depressive Disorder, and Anxiety Disorders.Evolutionary applications · 2026Article
- Asymmetric developmental bifurcations in polarized environments: a new class of human variants, which may include autism.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Review
- The DCIDE framework: systematic investigation of evolutionary hypotheses, exemplified with autism.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- "Are You Sick? No, I am Neurodivergent!" The Perilous Navigation Between Medicalization and Diagnostic Nihilism.Clinical neuropsychiatry · 2025Article
- ADHD and autism in Neurocognitive Mismatch Theory: distinct neurodevelopmental incompatibilities with the market-based system.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Mental health of intellectually gifted individuals: investigating the nonlinearity of the relationship between intelligence and general mental health.Health psychology report · 2025Article
- Unique models of embodied cognition and eco-social niches proposed to validate hypothesis of social attunement and mis-attunement with a focus on autism.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- ADHD and ASD are Normal Biological Variations as part of Human Evolution and are not "Disorders".Clinical neuropsychiatry · 2024Article
- Differences in ongoing thought between autistic and non-autistic adults.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Enrichment of a subset of Neanderthal polymorphisms in autistic probands and siblings.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Article
- Face perception and facial emotional expression recognition ability: Both unique predictors of the broader autism phenotype.Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) · 2024Article
- Intrapartum exposure to synthetic oxytocin, maternal BMI, and neurodevelopmental outcomes in children within the ECHO consortium.Journal of neurodevelopmental disorders · 2024Article
- Theoretical-Methodological Foundations for the Global Integration Method (Método de Integração Global-MIG) in the Treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorder.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Copy-number variants and polygenic risk for intelligence confer risk for autism spectrum disorder irrespective of their effects on cognitive ability.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Understanding strengths and challenges of people with autism: insights from parents and practitioners.International journal of developmental disabilities · 2024Article
- Brain-consistent architecture for imagination.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2024Article
3 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A suite of recent studies has reported positive genetic correlations between autism risk and measures of mental ability. These findings indicate that alleles for autism overlap broadly with alleles for high intelligence, which appears paradoxical given that autism is characterized, overall, by below-average IQ. This paradox can be resolved under the hypothesis that autism etiology commonly involves enhanced, but imbalanced, components of intelligence. This hypothesis is supported by convergent evidence showing that autism and high IQ share a diverse set of convergent correlates, including large brain size, fast brain growth, increased sensory and visual-spatial abilities, enhanced synaptic functions, increased attentional focus, high socioeconomic status, more deliberative decision-making, profession and occupational interests in engineering and physical sciences, and high levels of positive assortative mating. These findings help to provide an evolutionary basis to understanding autism risk as underlain in part by dysregulation of intelligence, a core human-specific adaptation. In turn, integration of studies on intelligence with studies of autism should provide novel insights into the neurological and genetic causes of high mental abilities, with important implications for cognitive enhancement, artificial intelligence, the relationship of autism with schizophrenia, and the treatment of both autism and intellectual disability.
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Registered trials
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