Girls, Boys and Autism
Geoffrey Cowley
Newsweek.com
Accessioned on September 15, 2003

"In the News" takes a look at what is being written about autism in the popular press and examines how the information is being presented. It is important to note that it is not a critique of the subject matter.

Here, we take a look at the recent article in Newsweek, "Girls, Boys and Autism," which describes a theory that autism is a form of extreme "maleness." The central theory of Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen’s book "The Essential Difference" is that the problems seen in autism such as the inability to understand facial expressions and social interactions, difficulties with language, but also the well-developed spatial skills, and the ability to categorize objects are all just an exaggeration of normal male aptitudes and deficits.

Dr. Baron-Cohen, a Cambridge University psychologist, has done a lot of work on what is called "theory of mind," a concept now accepted by most autism researchers. Theory of mind is the ability to comprehend that others have their own mental life, that they have their own thoughts and beliefs and that not all of these thoughts and beliefs are accurate or expressed truthfully. It is generally believed that virtually all children with autism have deficits in theory of mind and this may explain some of their social difficulties.

In his book, Cohen-Baron says that the "essential difference" is between the ability to understand people (empathizing - E) and the ability to understand things (systematizing – S). He says that autism is really an imbalance between the two. Thus, autism is exaggerated maleness, males being better at systematizing and less capable of empathizing or engaging in social interactions. It seems to fit with the male to female ratio of 4 to 1. Other evidence cited to support Cohen-Baron’s idea is a study that showed that monkeys have preferences for toys that mirror humans – girl monkeys like dolls, boy monkeys like cars. Other research has shown that baby girls are interested in faces, while baby boys prefer mechanical objects.

It’s tantalizing, but there are other explanations. Children with autism often stare at objects, even for hours at a time. Baron-Cohen emphasizes the usefulness of his theory in understanding the narrow interests and repetitive behaviours that people with ASDs display. The activities are not without purpose – the child with autism is discerning predictable rules or patterns in what they see, but the article doesn’t talk about how dysfunctional it is in the "typical" world. Most people with autism have great difficulty switching attention from one object or task to another. While Baron-Cohen sees this as an extreme of systematizing, others see it as an inability to discern a whole object – getting lost in details and missing out on the whole. Baron-Cohen’s theory is just that. He has pulled together quite accurately all the features of autism, but the idea of extreme maleness as an explanation for them does not explain a number of important features of autism. It does not explain the high rates of developmental delay, or the frequent language disorders, nor the occurrence in females.

The authors of the article suggest that autism may not always be a disorder: it can be a gift in the right circumstances. Certainly high functioning people and those with Asperger’s have talents and can become gainfully employed. And autism is not a scourge to those with its symptoms or to their families. But the article fails to acknowledge the real suffering experienced by children with autism and their families. By emphasizing rare savant skills, the authors distort the real experience of people with autism and their families. Many of the problems children with autism have are not just peculiarities that other fails to understand -- they can cause discomfort and fear and rejection by others.