Autism - An Extreme Male Brain Flashcards
What does Baron-Cohen (2005) believe that differences in abilities in males and females are caused by?
By the presence of testosterone in the womb whilst a foetus is developing, at 8 weeks the male embryo releases testosterone and causes the brain to develop differently
What is the extreme male brain caused by?
Increased exposure to testosterone in the womb
How do boys and ASD boys differ in their abilities?
Autistic children are far superior to males at tasks than males, and far worse at typically female tasks than ordinary males
What reinforces the idea that girls are better at empathising and boys are better at systemising?
Females are better at using and understanding body language than males whcih autistic people find difficult as they are even more ‘male’
What suggests that autism is linked to male sex characteristics?
The fact that there are more males and females with autism and autistic people show greater brain growth and boys brains grow quicker than girls
How do twin studies by Bailey et al (1995) refute the theory?
He found a 60% concordance rate for autism in MZ twins vs 0 in DZ twins which suggests genetic inheritance rather than testosterone exposure
How does Falter et al (2007/8) support when they tested 28 children and 31 typically developing children on mental rotation and figure disembedding tasks?
They found that children with autism outperformed normal children
What is an alternative theory?
That someone is born with a vulnerability to autism but only develop it if they are exposed to a trigger like being born prematurely or being exposed to the medication sodium valproate during pregnancy
What have Wen and Wen (2014) suggested that refutes the theory?
That parents being older links to ASD and parents age links to socioeconomic status, which has been associated with autism - higher = autism
What Baron-Cohen et al (1997) find?
That females scored better than males on the Complex Facial Expressions Test and those with ASD scored even lower than males which supports the theory
What is a strength of Baron-Cohen (2002)?
That it gives biological evidence for autism e.g finger length how males have a longer ring finger than their second finger and people with ASD have this in an extreme form
What evidence supports the theory?
Broader autistic phenotype - a set of characteristics that would not lead to diagnosis but are related to autism: scientists, mathematicians, engineers with poor social skills - these people most likely to have children with ASD
Why is there a difficulty with establishing causation?
There are so many variables as its not 100% clear whether the EMB develops due to autism or causes autism
