Do Autistic Brains Grow At Faster Rates?

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alex
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05 Dec 2007, 11:07 am

According to a recent study, the size of brain structures in adult autistic brains look very different than those seen in autistic children.

Wrong Planet takes an in depth look at this fascinating paper published in the journal Neuron.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/article356.html


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aspiegirl2
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05 Dec 2007, 3:54 pm

Interesting article. I was thinking that the the part of the brain that develops language (one of the first parts of the brain to develop) is stunted, causing other parts of the brain to grow bigger than usual to compensate. Then, as the person grows older, they begin to learn more and more about social skills and maybe the language part slowly grows. Or maybe they keep learned social skills in their long-term memory, since some of the social skills that autistics learn aren't natural but learned. Maybe other parts of the brain shrink as we get older because our language is growing. I'm not sure...it's just a theory of mine. It's fun to think about sometimes, especially as you go through Psyc classes in college.


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lucy1
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10 Dec 2007, 12:41 am

I love learning about this kind of information - I can relate to what they say - so much of it adds up. I can relate it to my own learning difficulties whilst in school - and my ability to achieve well academically later in life and the ongoing problems I have with anxiety.
Fascinating!! ! Thanks for posting this.



Last edited by lucy1 on 10 Dec 2007, 10:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

lucy1
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10 Dec 2007, 12:44 am

oh without thoroughly reading the article - my feeling is that autistic brains develop differently, perhaps more slowly in some respects in regard to fine tuning of neural pathways, but they mature over a longer time period.