Creativity, Evolutionary Psychology, Psychiatry with Particular Reference to Autism and Asperger's Syndrome

Background: Child and Adolescent Psychiatry quite rightly puts major emphasis on psychopathology and the functional impairments caused by psychopathology. Nevertheless it has been very long recognised that certain psychopathological states can have positive benefits for the individual and indeed can be adaptive. 

Objectives: Peter Jensen et al. (1997) showed that in ancestral environments ADHD symptoms could be adaptive and enhance survival.

Methods: Study of case histories.  This poster will discuss creative aspects of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism. It will focus on the extreme male brain and its relation to great creativity in the areas of science, engineering, mathematics, etc.. 

Results: This poster will show that personality traits associated with great creativity including persistence, capacity to hyperfocus, capacity for narrow focussing on detail, as well as a certain reduced interest in the wider social world.

Conclusions: Autism can lead to great originality and breakthroughs. It will examine a hypothesis that multiple genes of small effect that may be significantly responsible for psychiatric conditions can also have other effects in the areas of creativity and indeed in the areas of adaptation. 

References:

(1) Fitzgerald M. (2000). Is the cognitive style of persons with Asperger’s syndrome also a “mathematical style”? Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 30, 2, 175 – 176.

(2) Jensen P. (et al, 1997). Evolution and Revolution in Child Psychiatry: ADHD as a Disorder of Adaptation. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 36, 12, 1672 – 1679.