Psychologists and other scientists have developed a fascination with autism and autistic individuals in the last decade. Although you might think this has to do with the dramatic rise in autistic spectrum disorders, my take is that most of this research is directed at understanding normal brain functioning and behavior. The idea is to compare normal and autistic functioning, with an eye to what kinds of deficits cluster together in autism. One notable finding is that the lack of social behaviors found in most autistic individuals is associated with difficulties in theory of mind tasks, which hinge on understanding what others are thinking. This research on contagious yawning caught my eye as the latest example of this strategy.
The question these researchers seek to answer is why humans and some other primates yawn when others yawn around them. Their idea is pretty straightforward: contagious yawning is a reflexive expression of empathy. Empathy, or feeling what other people around you feel, is something that some individuals lack. A lack of empathy is a tell-tale symptom of autism. If contagious yawning is a function of empathy, you would expect autistic individuals to show less contagious yawning than non-autistic individuals, which is exactly what they found.
It is a research strategy that harkens back to the late 19th century when people with damaged brains, like Phineas Gage, were of great interest. The basic idea, back then, was to look at what changed in behavior when a part of the brain was damaged. Then it was inferred that in undamaged brains, that part contributed to normal functioning.
With autism research, however, the specific differences in brains between autistic and non-autistic individuals are not as well understood.
Each year, research into new methods to detect autistic children becomes increasingly successful. Presently, the earliest reliable tests can be performed at the age of 2, but as the prognosis is always better the earlier autism can be detected, scientists have pressed on to find new and better methods. The Early Autism Society (www.earlyautismsociety.com) has been using eye tracker technology that measures eye direction while the babies look at faces, eyes, and bouncing balls on a computer screen. The reason this test is so powerful is that it relies on a simple measurement, eye direction, to reach a diagnosis as opposed to a doctor’s opinion, which may be biased despite their best efforts.
While the mechanisms in the brain behind autism are not completely understood, methods such as these may eventually lend themselves to explanations of causes.
Comment by Tom McCarrick — May 21, 2008 @ 3:56 pm