Introduction
N, diagnosis; mean age (range); mean intelligence level (range) | Skill definitions | Skill assessment tools; information sources | Skill types (prevalence in %) | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Kanner (1943) | 11 autistic individuals; 5.38 (2.33–11); From “severe intellectual defect” to “superior intelligence” | Observations ranging from “At the age of 1 year he could hum and sing many tunes accurately.” to “…and had an excellent rote memory.” | Direct observation; Clinician and parental reports | Any talent (54.5); Memory (54.5); Music (36.3) |
Asperger (1944) | 4 autistic individuals; 8.25 (6–11); IQ n/a | Observations ranging from “His extraordinary calculating ability had been reported by the parents and verified by us.” to “He was an excellent speller and never made mistakes.” | Direct observation; Clinician and parental report | Any Talent (75); Memory (50); Calculation (25); Spelling (25) |
Rimland (1978) | 540 autistic individuals; Age and IQ n/a | “…any “special abilities” the child may display.” | Postal survey; Parental report | Any talent (9.8) |
Rapin (1996) | 51 “High-functioning autistic individuals”; 4.8 (range n/a); NVIQ 102.9 (range n/a) | “…whether they (parents) felt that their child had unusually well developed abilities in memory, mathematics, recognition of letters and numbers, music or motor skills.” | Questionnaire; Parental report | Memory (70.6); Number and Dates (45.1); Puzzle/spatial skills (35.3); Music (27.5); Fine motor (21.6); Letters/numbers (25.5); Other (31.4) |
125 “Low-functioning autistic individuals”; 5.0 (range n/a); NVIQ 45.6 (range n/a) | Memory (44); Dates (13.6); Puzzle/spatial skills (26.4); Music (23.2); Fine motor (14.4); Letters/numbers (9.6); Other (17.6) | |||
Bolte and Poustka (2004) | 254 autistic probands; 15.54 (6–49); FSIQ 72.56 (32–129) | ADI-R Score of 3 or 4 coded on “current” behavior: performance level above the participant’s general level of cognitive functioning and above that expected for their age, with (4) or without (3) functional or adaptive use of skill in daily life | ADI-R special isolated skills items (106–111); Parental report | Any Talent in memory, music, computation, reading, visual-spatial and/or drawing (13) |
Howlin et al. (2009) |
Assessment 1 87/137 autistic individuals; 24.1 (11–48); FSIQ 77.52 (39–130) | Exceptional cognitive skill in any of the Wechsler subtests (1 SD ≥ population norms and 2 SD ≥ participant’s mean) | Wechsler subtests; Psychometric assessment | Strength in cognitive skill for at least one Wechsler subtest (26.4) |
Assessment 2 93/137 autistic individuals; 34.2 (21–55); PIQ 73.56 (29–135) | Outstanding skill/knowledge definitely above subject’s general level of ability and above that of age-matched individuals from the general population | Questionnaire; Parental report | Any Talent in memory, music, computation (including calendrical calculation) and/or visual-spatial (25.8) | |
137/137 autistics n/a (11–55) PIQ 69.9 (28–135) VIQ 77.5 (7–134) | See definitions above | Questionnaire and Wechsler subtests | Any Talent and/or cognitive skills (28.5) | |
Jones et al. (2009) | 100 ASD; 15.6 (14.8–16.9) FSIQ 84.3 (50–119) | Test performance highly discrepant from own general intellectual functioning | Wechsler Objective Reading and Numerical Dimensions and test of Word Reading Efficiency; Psychometric assessment | Strength in literacy and/or mathematics (72.7) |
Bennett and Heaton (2012) | 125 ASD; 10.0 (3–20); IQ n/a but 7.9 % had intellectual disability | One or more skills that were outstanding given their functioning skills based on nine structured and open-ended questions | Questionnaire; Parental report | Any Talent (42); Memory/knowledge (28); Mathematical/numerical (15.2); Artistic (9.6); Music (9.6); Reading/vocabulary (9.6); Spatial (8.8); ICT (8.8); Mechanical (3.2); Other (4.8) |
Current study |
Study 1 254 autistic individuals; 11.35 (2–39) FSIQ 87 (40–130) (n = 171) | ADI-R Score of 2 or 7 coded on “current” or “ever” behavior: Performance level above the participant’s general level of cognitive functioning and above that expected for their age, with (7) or without (2) functional or adaptive use of the skill in daily life. | ADI-R special isolated skills items (88–93); Parental report | Any Talent (62.6); Memory (52.5); Visuospatial (32); Reading (22.4); Drawing (17.5); Music (16.9); Computation (16.7) |
Study 2 43/254 autistic individuals; 20.81(14–36); FSIQ 105 (71–125) | Perceptual peak on experimental tasks (1 SD ≥ population mean) | Modified block design and Pitch Discrimination Tasks; Experimental testing | Strength in perceptual performance for at least one experimental task (57.5) | |
Same 43 subjects | See definitions above | ADI-R special isolated skills items (88–93) and Experimental Tasks | Any Talent and/or perceptual peak (88.4) |
Methods
Participants
Talents (i.e. ADI-R “Special Isolated Skills”) | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
n | Mean | Range | SD | |
a. | ||||
Age in years | 254 | 11.35 | 2–39 | 8.00 |
Wechsler’s GIQ z-score | 171 | −0.85 | −4.00 to 2.00 | 1.28 |
RPM z-score | 150 | 0.54 | −2.33 to 2.33 | 1.11 |
RPM raw score | 150 | 41.2 | 7–60 | 11.99 |
Strengths (i.e. “Perceptual Peaks”) | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Autistics | TD Controls | ||||||
(n = 43, 8 females: 35 males) | (n = 38, 5 females: 33 males) | ||||||
Mean | Range | SD | Mean | Range | SD |
p
| |
b. | |||||||
Age in years | 20.81 | 14–36 | 0.94 | 20.24 | 14–25 | 0.68 | 0.606 |
Wechsler’s GIQ z-score | −0.39 | −1.93 to 1.73 | 0.99 | 0.48 | −1.33 to 2.07 | 0.87 | <.001** |
RPM z-score | 0.70 | −1.30 to 2.30 | 0.85 | 0.42 | −1.00 to 1.80 | 0.74 | 0.115 |
RPM raw score | 46.33 | 27–60 | 7.00 | 45.71 | 31–57 | 7.09 | 0.696 |
Special Isolated Skills (SIS)
Perceptual Peaks (PP)
Statistical Analyses
Prevalence
Predisposing Factors
Co-occurrence of Outstanding Abilities in Autistic Individuals
Results
Study 1: Special Isolated Skills (SIS)
Prevalence
Special isolated skills (SIS) | Statistics |
p
| ||
---|---|---|---|---|
With | Without | |||
a. | ||||
Autistic individuals | ||||
N (%) | 159 (62.6) | 95 (37.4) | Binomial test | <0.001** |
Male (%) | 141 (63.2) | 82 (36.8) | χ2(1, N = 254) = 0.310 | 0.578 |
Wechsler’s GIQ z-score (SD) | −0.67 (1.28) | −1.36 (1.13) | t(169) = −3.208 | 0.002* |
RPM z-score (SD) | 0.68 (1.08) | 0.04 (1.07) | t(146) = −3.112 | 0.002* |
Age in years (SD) | 13.36 (8.25) | 7.97 (6.28) | t(237.455) = −5.878 | <0.001** |
Perceptual peaks (PP) | Statistics |
p
| ||
---|---|---|---|---|
With | Without | |||
b. | ||||
Autistic individuals | ||||
N (%) | 23 (57.5) | 17 (42.5) | Binomial test | 0.430 |
Male (%) | 20 (87) | 13 (76.5) | Fischer Exact | 0.432 |
Wechsler’s GIQ z-score (SD) | −0.73 (0.77) | 0.25 (0.94) | t(38) = 3.620 | 0.001* |
RPM z-score (SD) | 0.85 (0.63) | 0.70 (1.04) | t(38) = −0.568 | 0.574 |
Age in years (SD) | 20.00 (5.48) | 21.47 (6.30) | t(38) = 0.787 | 0.436 |
TD controls | ||||
N (%) | 5 (13.2) | 33 (86.8) | Binomial test | <0.001** |
Male (%) | 5 (100) | 28 (84.8) | Fischer Exact | 1.000†
|
Wechsler’s GIQ z-score (SD) | 0.19 (1.23) | 0.53 (0.82) | t(36) = 0.815 | 0.421 |
RPM z-score (SD) | 0.34 (0.70) | 0.43 (0.76) | t(36) = 0.258 | 0.798 |
Age in years (SD) | 21.6 (3.36) | 20.03 (3.73) | t(36) = −0.886 | 0.381 |
Predisposing Factors
Independent variables | Special isolated skills | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Coefficient (B) | SE | Wald |
p value | Exp(B) (odds-ratio) | |
a. | |||||
Age in years | 0.084 | 0.033 | 6.402 | 0.011 | 1.087 |
Wechsler’s GIQ z-score | 0.391 | 0.146 | 7.147 | 0.008* | 1.479 |
Sex | −0.539 | 0.518 | 0.860 | 0.354 | 0.584 |
Constant | 0.986 | 0.707 | 1.947 | 0.163 | 2.680 |
Age in years | 0.101 | 0.038 | 7.009 | 0.008* | 1.106 |
RPMz-score | 0.525 | 0.188 | 7.808 | 0.005* | 1.690 |
Sex | −0.606 | 0.648 | 0.874 | 0.350 | 0.546 |
Constant | 0.406 | 0.770 | 0.278 | 0.598 | 1.501 |
Independent variables | Perceptual peaks | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Coefficient (B) | SE | Wald |
p value | Exp(B) (odds-ratio) | |
b. | |||||
Age in years | 0.040 | 0.060 | 0.441 | 0.507 | 1.041 |
Wechsler’s GIQ z-score | −1.204 | 0.383 | 9.882 | 0.002* | 0.300 |
Sex | 1.601 | 0.906 | 3.125 | 0.077 | 4.958 |
Group | 1.729 | 0.632 | 7.481 | 0.006* | 5.636 |
Constant | −7.205 | 2.595 | 7.711 | 0.005* | 0.001 |
Age in years | −0.020 | 0.053 | 0.140 | 0.708 | 0.980 |
RPM z-score | 0.137 | 0.346 | 0.156 | 0.693 | 1.146 |
Sex | 0.924 | 0.785 | 1.385 | 0.239 | 2.520 |
Group | 2.231 | 0.596 | 14.006 | <0.001** | 9.307 |
Constant | −5.541 | 2.185 | 6.433 | 0.011 | 0.004 |