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Developmental Heterochrony And The Evolution Of Autistic Perception, Cognition And Behavior

Resource type
Date created
2013
Authors/Contributors
Abstract
BackgroundAutism is usually conceptualized as a disorder or disease that involves fundamentally abnormal neurodevelopment. In the present work, the hypothesis that a suite of core autism-related traits may commonly represent simple delays or non-completion of typical childhood developmental trajectories is evaluated.DiscussionA comprehensive review of the literature indicates that, with regard to the four phenotypes of (1) restricted interests and repetitive behavior, (2) short-range and long-range structural and functional brain connectivity, (3) global and local visual perception and processing, and (4) the presence of absolute pitch, the differences between autistic individuals and typically developing individuals closely parallel the differences between younger and older children.SummaryThe results of this study are concordant with a model of ‘developmental heterochrony’, and suggest that evolutionary extension of child development along the human lineage has potentiated and structured genetic risk for autism and the expression of autistic perception, cognition and behavior.
Document
Published as
BMC Medicine 2013, 11:119 doi:10.1186/1741-7015-11-119
Publication title
BMC Medicine
Document title
Developmental Heterochrony And The Evolution Of Autistic Perception, Cognition And Behavior
Date
2013
Volume
11
Issue
119
Publisher DOI
10.1186/1741-7015-11-119
Copyright statement
Copyright is held by the author(s).
Scholarly level
Peer reviewed?
Yes
Language
English
Member of collection
Download file Size
1741-7015-11-119.pdf 429.86 KB

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