Autism and creativity

A new study showing that people with autism display higher levels of creativity has been welcomed by campaigners, who say it helps debunk a myth about people with learning disabilities.

Scientists found that people with the developmental condition were far more likely to come up with unique answers to creative problems despite having traits that can be socially crippling and make it difficult to find jobs. The co-author of the study, Dr Catherine Best from the University of Stirling, said that while the results, from a study of 312 people, were a measure of just one aspect of the creative process, it revealed a link between autistic traits and unusual and original ideas.

“We speculate that it may be because they are approaching things very differently. It goes a way towards explaining how some people with what is often characterised as a disability exhibit superior creative talents in some domains.”

Autism is a lifelong disorder which affects 1 in 100 in the UK, changing the way they communicate and experience the world, and varying greatly from person to person. Jolanta Lasota, chief executive of the charity Ambitious about Autism, said lack of creativity is one of many autism myths. She welcomed the study for suggesting that seeing the world in a different way can be a positive trait
She said: “There are many misconceptions and myths about autism, the biggest one including being antisocial and having a lack of empathy. However, what people with autism struggle with is fitting their feelings of sympathy and caring into everyday interactions.

“While it is true that some people with autism can have very specific interests and may struggle with abstract concepts, this research helps to highlight the fact that seeing the world in a different way can be a positive trait too. We find time and again that many of our pupils in our TreeHouse School and Ambitious College are very creative, whether that be through art, music, film or photography. It is great to see research continued in this area to help dispel more autism myths.”

Lasota has been campaigning for employers to consider people with learning disabilities when they’re hiring, and hopes that studies like this will help. “With the right support, planning and opportunities from parents and employers, many people with autism have the ability to work. Despite this, recent figures show that only 15% of people with autism are in full-time paid employment – 79% of those polled who are not in employment would like to be.”

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/22/autism-creative-thinking-study
Courtesy of:  http://www.medpagetoday.com/HematologyOncology/OtherCancers/53201?isalert=1&uun=g906366d4462R5793688u&xid=NL_breakingnews_2015-08-24

Best C, Arora S, Porter F, Doherty M. The Relationship Between Subthreshold
Autistic Traits, Ambiguous Figure Perception and Divergent Thinking. J Autism Dev
Disord. 2015 Aug 14. [Epub ahead of print]

Abstract

This research investigates the paradox of creativity in autism. That is, whether people with subclinical autistic traits have cognitive styles conducive to creativity or whether they are disadvantaged by the implied cognitive and behavioural rigidity of the autism phenotype. The relationship between divergent thinking (a cognitive component of creativity), perception of ambiguous figures, and self-reported autistic traits was evaluated in 312 individuals in a non-clinical sample. High levels of autistic traits were significantly associated with lower fluency scores on the divergent thinking tasks. However autistic traits were associated with high numbers of unusual responses on the divergent thinking tasks. Generation of novel ideas is a prerequisite for creative problem solving and may be an adaptive advantage associated with autistic traits.