Autism has become synonymous with despair. The word conjures up nightmarish visions of a rocking child, locked in her own impenetrable world, unable to speak, smile and laugh with those who love her. While that is true for a very small proportion of children at the extreme end of the autism spectrum, many more individuals on the spectrum go on to lead fulfilling, even brilliant, lives.

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen has spent much of his career championing the positive side of autism. His most recent finding, to be published shortly in the Journal of Human Nature, is that talented mathematicians are at least twice as likely as the general population to have the condition. He also found, by comparing maths undergraduates at Cambridge University with undergraduates of other disciplines (law, medicine), that mathematicians are more likely than students of other subjects to have a sibling or parent with autism.

That, he says, points to genetics: his theory is that there is a group of genes that codes for both mathematical ability and autism. “This association between maths and autism keeps cropping up,” he says. Finding these maths genes could be a milestone on the way to finding the genes associated with autism. He would now like to recruit Times readers to help him find these genes. He has DNA from people who are good at maths but he would now like to be contacted by readers who are good at English but have always been numerically challenged.

Baron-Cohen has previously found that autism is much more common among engineers than in the general population. It is no coincidence: mathematics and engineering are very ordered, rigorous disciplines in which there is usually a right answer.

In Baron-Cohen’s framework, they are “systemising” disciplines as opposed to “empathising” disciplines such as counselling. Autism arises, he says, when our capacity for empathising is impaired, but our capacity to systemise is intact or even enhanced. This leads to the popular “Rain Man” notion of autism, in which individuals cannot “read” others but show striking intellect in other ways, such as mathematical ability, musical talent or artistic flair. They may also be able to recite calendrical facts, railway timetables or remember details with photographical precision.

The puzzle is why the genes for autism have persisted throughout human evolution. Human beings, I suggest to Baron-Cohen, are essentially a social species, so why should autism, which damages our ability to interact with others, not have disappeared from the human population?

He says: “We’ve not just evolved to be social. We’ve also evolved to systemise and to make tools. Those tools range from flint axes to mobile phones. A hammer is just a system for driving one thing into another.

“I would even argue that the drive to systemise is more unique to humans than the drive to socialise. Many species socialise but very few systemise.” Autism seems unique, so far, to homo sapiens; the only cases of autism in animals have been experimentally induced (by creating lesions on a monkey’s brain). In this way, people with autism, it could be argued, are more human than those without.

Autism would only disappear if those with the condition fail to reproduce; but systemising professions seem no less attractive to the opposite sex than nonsystemisers (the millionaires of Silicon Valley, which is rumoured to have a higher incidence of autism than neighbouring areas, certainly don’t find themselves lacking romantic company).

Baron-Cohen revealed that he had been partly inspired to study autism by his sister, Suzie, who is in her forties, wheelchair-bound and has profound learning disabilities. Apart from the first few years of her life, Suzie, who cannot speak, has lived in institutions.

He says: “Despite having no language, she has fantastic emotional contact with people, with good eye contact. Her social side appears almost unaffected. In some ways, she’s the mirror image of autism. I’m sure she has influenced my way of thinking that some aspects of the mind are independent of others.”

Good at English, bad at maths?

Professor Baron-Cohen’s team are interested in hearing from readers who have a grade A or above in GCSE English and a grade C or lower in GCSE mathematics. Volunteers must be prepared to provide a DNA sample (by a painless cheek swab). Interested readers should e-mail Uma Mallya: um209@cam.ac.uk

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