extreme male brain/biological explanation of autism

Question 1

what did Baron-Cohen suggest

Answer 1

suggested brain structure of an autistic person is an exaggerated normal male brain

Question 2

what happens to brains as they develop

Answer 2

they become more masulinised as they develop

Question 3

what is autism caused by according to this explaination

Answer 3

fetus exposed to excess testosterone in the womb causes the brain to change and develop down the male path

Question 4

what are features of masculinated brains

Answer 4

-less connected corpus callosum(responsible for communication between left and right side of brain)
-more lateralised(so one side of the brain used than the other)

Question 5

what does the male brain being lateralised mean for males

Answer 5

they are adept at make tasks such as being rule and task focused rather than person focused

Question 6

how can the features of the male brain explain autism characteristics

Answer 6

-men are more likely to be systemisers. This is a person who likes rules,routines and the right answer.Autism is an example of extreme systemisers where a person likes patterns,rules and is low in empathizing
-difficulties understanding others emotions and socialization problems ,as their brain is lateralised and they are higher systemisers
-males more common than females which makes sense if autism is an extreme version of the typical male brain
-delayed speech=males develop speech slower than women on average
-savant abilities tend to be math/spatial related
-stereotypical unimaginative play like stacking
-their love of routine-getting upset when things aren’t in routine

Question 7

what are empathisers

Answer 7

ability to perceive emotions in others and respond accordingly.This tends to be females

Question 8

what brain region is larger in male brain and also autistic brain

Answer 8

amygdala tends to be larger than females

Question 9

what brain patterns are more prominent in those with autism

Answer 9

lateralised brain patterns

Question 10

what did Falter say that supports this explanation

Answer 10

found autistic children did better in mental rotation and figure dismembering tasks(typical male tasks).This shows that they do seem to have a higher ability with systemiser tasks suggesting this is a credible explanation of autism

Question 11

what did Wen&Wen discover that supports this explanation

Answer 11

found traits linked to autism are also linked with antisocial personality such as lower empathy (which more males have)also saw brain differences between autistic and allistic people in amygdala.This suggests they do have an extreme male brain and the theory is credible

Question 12

how is this explanation reliable and valid

Answer 12

empirical as we can measure brain activity and structure directly using brain scans =objective and scientific
brain scans are also standardized so easy to repeat and can be checked for consistency=reliable

Question 13

what did Falter find that conflicts this explanation

Answer 13

found no correlation with performance on tasks and finger ratio so emb may not be credible explanation
also those with autism should have done better on visual targeting tasks but did worse so emb may be to simple of an explanation as it doesn’t explain all patterns in an autistic person

Question 14

what did Baron Cohen find that supports this explanation

Answer 14

supported by 2d:4d ratios because an autistic children are likely to have 2d:4d ratio closer to 0 suggesting overexposure to testosterone .This supports as we can see their is a relationship between testosterone and autism so theory cred

Question 15

otoh point for falter

Answer 15

small unrepresentative sample as autism is a large sample so not generalisable

Question 16

otoh point for baron cohen

Answer 16

correlation research so we can’t establish cause and effect can’t be sure if autism increases testosterone or if increased testosterone causes autism

Question 17

what is monotropism and how is it a weakness of this explanation

Answer 17

monotropic people’s attention is driven by their interests, narrowly focused and sustained over long periods of time in contrast neurotypical people are better at multi tasking and adapting to unexpected changes this can explain difficulties autistic people suffer with like social communication and their specialisms which EMB does not account for

Question 18

give 4 ways EMB can explain autism(4 marks)

Answer 18

-Testosterone in womb impacts development of amygdala – impacts social interactions/emotions
-Less connected corpus callosum/more lateralised impacts social interactions and emotions
-Males have less neural pruning, as does people with autism, leads to more dendrites which causes more signals = overwhelmed when routines change
-Males are more likely to be systemisers – autism= extreme systemising e.g. seeing patters
-Males are slower to develop language and people with autism have even slower development which explains why people with autism have issues with conversations