en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathising%E2%80%93systemising_theory
3 corrections found
Baron-Cohen and colleagues performed a study in 2014 using 19,677 samples of amniotic fluid to show that people who would later develop autism had elevated fetal steroidogenic levels, including testosterone.
This misstates the study’s sample size. The paper drew cases from a cohort of 19,677 stored samples, but the hormone analysis itself used 128 autism cases and 217 controls, not 19,677 amniotic-fluid samples.
Full reasoning
The cited study did not analyze 19,677 amniotic-fluid samples. In the paper’s abstract, the authors say they identified male cases later diagnosed with autism (n=128) and compared them with matched typically developing controls. In the Participants section, they further clarify that these cases were selected from a population of singleton births between 1993 and 1999 (n=19,677) whose amniotic-fluid samples were stored in the Danish Historic Birth Cohort. The paper then states: “The final sample sizes in all analyses are n = 217 controls and n = 128 autism.”
So the article has confused the size of the source cohort (19,677 stored samples existed in the biobank) with the actual analyzed sample (345 total participants in the final analyses).
1 source
- Elevated fetal steroidogenic activity in autism - PMC
Participants were selected from a population of singleton births between the years 1993 and 1999 (n = 19 677) whose amniotic fluid samples were stored within the HBC... The final sample sizes in all analyses are n = 217 controls and n = 128 autism.
Another similar finding by Baron-Cohen in California has been referred to as the Silicon Valley phenomenon, where a large portion of the population works in technical fields, and he says autism prevalence rates are ten times higher than the average of the US population.
This misattributes the ‘Silicon Valley’ claim to Baron-Cohen’s own California research. Baron-Cohen wrote that the California claim was anecdotal and explicitly said no detailed systematic study had yet been done there; the study his team actually conducted was in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
Full reasoning
This sentence collapses together an anecdotal claim about California with Baron-Cohen’s actual research, and that changes the facts.
In Baron-Cohen’s 2012 Scientific American article, he wrote that “some people claim” Silicon Valley in California has autism rates 10 times higher than average, but he immediately added that “no one has yet conducted detailed and systematic studies in Silicon Valley” and that those accounts “remain anecdotal.” He then contrasted that with the place his team did study: Eindhoven, the Silicon Valley of the Netherlands.
A separate Time profile describing the study says Baron-Cohen published results from a survey of more than 62,000 schoolchildren in three regions of the Netherlands, including Eindhoven, and found rates there were two to four times those in comparison cities. So it is incorrect to present the California claim as Baron-Cohen’s finding or as something he established through a California study.
2 sources
- Are Geeky Couples More Likely to Have Kids with Autism? | Scientific American
If genes for technical aptitude are linked to genes for autism, then autism should be more common in places around the world where many systemizers live, work and marry-places such as Silicon Valley in California, which some people claim has autism rates 10 times higher than the average for the general population... Unfortunately, no one has yet conducted detailed and systematic studies in Silicon Valley... My colleagues and I, however, have investigated the rates of autism in Eindhoven, the Silicon Valley of the Netherlands.
- Autism's Lone Wolf | TIME
In June, however, Baron-Cohen's theory breathed new life when he published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders the results of a major survey of more than 62,000 schoolchildren in three regions of the Netherlands, one of which, Eindhoven, is known as the Dutch Silicon Valley.
It was found that autism is commonly diagnosed in children where the corpus callosum does not fully develop (45% of children with agenesis of the corpus callosum).
The 45% figure is not a diagnosis rate. The cited study found that 45% of children with agenesis of the corpus callosum exceeded an autism screening cutoff, and explicitly noted that an autism-spectrum diagnosis was not verified by clinical assessment or observation.
Full reasoning
This sentence turns a screening result into a diagnosis rate.
The study reporting the 45% number says it screened a cohort with the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) and found that 45% of children exceeded the predetermined autism-screening cut-off. That is not the same as being clinically diagnosed with autism.
A later review/comparison paper makes the distinction explicit: it states that in the 106-person AgCC study, 45% of children, 35% of adolescents, and 18% of adults exceeded the AQ cut-off suggesting autism traits, but an autism spectrum diagnosis was not verified by clinical assessment or observation. The same review also notes that earlier caregiver surveys found much lower rates of reported formal ASD diagnoses in AgCC (for example, 76 of 720 subjects, or 10.6%).
So the article’s wording is inaccurate because it presents screen-positive autistic traits as if they were confirmed autism diagnoses.
2 sources
- Autism traits in individuals with agenesis of the corpus callosum - PMC
We screened a large AgCC cohort (n = 106) with the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) and found that 45% of children, 35% of adolescents, and 18% of adults exceeded the predetermined autism-screening cut-off.
- Agenesis of the corpus callosum and autism: a comprehensive comparison - PMC
Of 106 participants, 45% of children, 35% of adolescents and 18% of adults exceeded the cut-off score on the Autism Quotient suggesting the presence of autism traits, but an autism spectrum diagnosis was not verified by clinical assessment or observation.