Study finds autistics better at problem-solving

"This study builds on our previous findings and should help educators capitalize on the intellectual abilities of autistics," says senior researcher Laurent Mottron, the new Marcel & Rolande Gosselin Research Chair in Autism Cognitive Neuroscience of the Université de Montréal and psychiatry professor. "The limits of autistics should constantly be pushed and their educational materials should never be simplified."

Adds Dr. Soulières: "The Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices are among the most complex tests to provide insight on how a person understands and formulates rules, manages goal hierarchies and performs high-level abstractions. Our wager was that autistics could complete such a test and they surpassed our expectations."

About the study:
The study, "Enhanced Visual Processing Contributes to Matrix Reasoning in Autism, published in the journal Human Brain Mapping, was authored by Isabelle Soulières, Gary E. Strangman, Cherif Sahyoun and Thomas A. Zeffiro of the Harvard University and Laurent Mottron, Michelle Dawson, Fabienne Samson and Elise B. Barbeau of the Université de Montréal.

Partners in research:
This study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Autism Speaks.

On the Web:
About the cited article: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/122456693/HTMLSTART
About the Université de Montréal: www.umontreal.ca/english/index.htm
About the Harvard Medical School: http://hms.harvard.edu/hms/home.asp
About Isabelle Soulières: www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/martinos/people/showPerson.php?people_id=747
About Laurent Mottron: www.lnc-autisme.umontreal.ca