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Savant syndrome has a distinct psychological profile in autism

BACKGROUND: Savant syndrome is a condition where prodigious talent can co-occur with developmental conditions such as autism spectrum conditions (autism). It is not yet clear why some autistic people develop savant skills while others do not. METHODS: We tested three groups of adults: autistic indiv...

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Autores principales: Hughes, James E A, Ward, Jamie, Gruffydd, Elin, Baron-Cohen, Simon, Smith, Paula, Allison, Carrie, Simner, Julia
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6186137/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30344992
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13229-018-0237-1
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author Hughes, James E A
Ward, Jamie
Gruffydd, Elin
Baron-Cohen, Simon
Smith, Paula
Allison, Carrie
Simner, Julia
author_facet Hughes, James E A
Ward, Jamie
Gruffydd, Elin
Baron-Cohen, Simon
Smith, Paula
Allison, Carrie
Simner, Julia
author_sort Hughes, James E A
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Savant syndrome is a condition where prodigious talent can co-occur with developmental conditions such as autism spectrum conditions (autism). It is not yet clear why some autistic people develop savant skills while others do not. METHODS: We tested three groups of adults: autistic individuals who have savant skills, autistic individuals without savant skills, and typical controls without autism or savant syndrome. In experiment 1, we investigated the cognitive and behavioural profiles of these three groups by asking participants to complete a battery of self-report measures of sensory sensitivity, obsessional behaviours, cognitive styles, and broader autism-related traits including social communication and systemising. In experiment 2, we investigated how our three groups learned a novel savant skill—calendar calculation. RESULTS: Heightened sensory sensitivity, obsessional behaviours, technical/spatial abilities, and systemising were all key aspects in defining the savant profile distinct from autism alone, along with a different approach to task learning. CONCLUSIONS: These results reveal a unique cognitive and behavioural profile in autistic adults with savant syndrome that is distinct from autistic adults without a savant skill. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13229-018-0237-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-61861372018-10-19 Savant syndrome has a distinct psychological profile in autism Hughes, James E A Ward, Jamie Gruffydd, Elin Baron-Cohen, Simon Smith, Paula Allison, Carrie Simner, Julia Mol Autism Research BACKGROUND: Savant syndrome is a condition where prodigious talent can co-occur with developmental conditions such as autism spectrum conditions (autism). It is not yet clear why some autistic people develop savant skills while others do not. METHODS: We tested three groups of adults: autistic individuals who have savant skills, autistic individuals without savant skills, and typical controls without autism or savant syndrome. In experiment 1, we investigated the cognitive and behavioural profiles of these three groups by asking participants to complete a battery of self-report measures of sensory sensitivity, obsessional behaviours, cognitive styles, and broader autism-related traits including social communication and systemising. In experiment 2, we investigated how our three groups learned a novel savant skill—calendar calculation. RESULTS: Heightened sensory sensitivity, obsessional behaviours, technical/spatial abilities, and systemising were all key aspects in defining the savant profile distinct from autism alone, along with a different approach to task learning. CONCLUSIONS: These results reveal a unique cognitive and behavioural profile in autistic adults with savant syndrome that is distinct from autistic adults without a savant skill. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13229-018-0237-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2018-10-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6186137/ /pubmed/30344992 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13229-018-0237-1 Text en © The Author(s). 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Hughes, James E A
Ward, Jamie
Gruffydd, Elin
Baron-Cohen, Simon
Smith, Paula
Allison, Carrie
Simner, Julia
Savant syndrome has a distinct psychological profile in autism
title Savant syndrome has a distinct psychological profile in autism
title_full Savant syndrome has a distinct psychological profile in autism
title_fullStr Savant syndrome has a distinct psychological profile in autism
title_full_unstemmed Savant syndrome has a distinct psychological profile in autism
title_short Savant syndrome has a distinct psychological profile in autism
title_sort savant syndrome has a distinct psychological profile in autism
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6186137/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30344992
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13229-018-0237-1
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