Abstract
It has been hypothesised that autism is an extreme version of the male brain, caused by high levels of prenatal testosterone (Baron-Cohen 1999). To test this proposal, associations were assessed between three visuo-spatial tasks and prenatal testosterone, indexed in second-to-fourth digit length ratios (2D:4D). The study included children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, ASD (N = 28), and chronological as well as mental age matched typically-developing children (N = 31). While the group with ASD outperformed the control group at Mental Rotation and Figure-Disembedding, these group differences were not related to differences in prenatal testosterone level. Previous findings of an association between Targeting and 2D:4D were replicated in typically-developing children and children with ASD. The implications of these results for the extreme male brain (EMB) theory of autism are discussed.
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The authors would like to thank the children who participated in the study and the schools, teachers and parents who supported our research.
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Falter, C.M., Plaisted, K.C. & Davis, G. Visuo-spatial Processing in Autism—Testing the Predictions of Extreme Male Brain Theory. J Autism Dev Disord 38, 507–515 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-007-0419-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-007-0419-8