Prevalence of Clinically and Empirically Defined Talents and Strengths in Autism

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Abstract

Outstanding skills, including special isolated skills (SIS) and perceptual peaks (PP) are frequent features of autism. However, their reported prevalence varies between studies and their co-occurrence is unknown. We determined the prevalence of SIS in a large group of 254 autistic individuals and searched for PP in 46 of these autistic individuals and 46 intelligence and age-matched typically developing controls. The prevalence of SIS among autistic individuals was 62.5 % and that of PP was 58 % (13 % in controls). The prevalence of SIS increased with intelligence and age. The existence of an SIS in a particular modality was not associated with the presence of a PP in the same modality. This suggests that talents involve an experience-dependent component in addition to genetically defined alterations of perceptual encoding.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Andrée-Anne S. Meilleur: ameilleur009@gmail.com

Patricia Jelenic: patricia.jelenic.hrdp@ssss.gouv.qc.ca

Laurent Mottron: 514-323-7260 , laurent.mottron@gmail.com

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): J Autism Dev Disord

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): J Autism Dev Disord

Title: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders

Publisher: Springer US (New York )

ISSN (Print): 0162-3257

ISSN (Electronic): 1573-3432

Publication date (Electronic): 6 November 2014

Publication date PMC-release: 6 November 2014

Publication date (Print): 2015

Volume: 45

Issue: 5

Pages: 1354-1367

Affiliations

The University of Montreal Center of Excellence for Pervasive Developmental Disorders (CETEDUM), Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies, 7070 Perras Blvd., Montreal, QC H1E 1A4 Canada

Article

Publisher ID: 2296

DOI: 10.1007/s10803-014-2296-2

PMC ID: 4544492

PubMed ID: 25374134

SO-VID: a5c17752-cc57-45f9-af1f-43fea3277a11

License:

Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited.