Autism is not only an issue of U.S but also for the entire third world countries. It is known to everyone that autism comes with intellectual disorders as well as it is a spectrum of disorders, that’s the reason why it is also named ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders).
The main thing to understand about autism is its core reason – autism is purely genetic. Few things are still left to understand about it.
It is our responsibility to stay up to date about the new findings and discoveries on it to get the cure of it. Autism is an incurable neuropsychiatric disorder still because of its unknown facts. Besides knowing the interventions and therapies, we need to go through the genetic links between autism and higher intelligence.
Presence of genetic traits for cognitive disabilities:
Almost all of us know what are the behavioral symptoms of an autistic individual. Here, I want to make you focus on the cognitive disability. According to a study done by the researchers at University of Edinburgh, it was found that, genetic factors linked with autism have a relation with better cognitive abilities of the healthy individuals.
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Two cases have been seen:
# Firstly, 70% people with autistic disabilities are with cognitive disabilities.
# Secondly, few people with this disorder are with non-verbal intellectual skills
The non-verbal intelligence skills don’t need use of language. Their hands on skills and work are enough to understand their intellectual ability.
Study to know the presence of genetic traits:
A study was done at the Universities of Edinburgh and Queensland with 10,000 people of Scotland. The participants went through the DNA analysis test along with the test for cognitive ability. Researchers found that the control or healthy participants with no characteristics of autism, also carry the genetic traits of autism.
Dr. Toni-Kim Clarke, who was the leader of this study, said, “Our findings show that genetic variation which increases risk for autism is associated with better cognitive ability in non-autistic individuals. As we begin to understand how genetic variants associated with autism impact brain function, we may begin to further understand the nature of autistic intelligence”
Not only that, but another researcher and geneticist of the Queensland Institute for Medical Research, Nick Martin, Ph.D, also said, “This study suggests genes for autism may actually confer, on average, a small intellectual advantage in those who carry them, provided they are not affected by autism”
