Autism and Creativity

United Nations Autism Awareness Stamps. Head of the UNPA Graphic Design Unit, Ms. Rorie Katz decided to feature artwork of people with autism to educate others of their passion, talents and creativity. Source: https://www.autismspeaks.org/blog/2012/04/05/united-nations-autism-awareness-stamps

People with Autism and Learning Disabilities Excel in Creative Rhinking, Study Shows

Research confirms that seeing the world in ‘a different way’ sparks unique ideas

Tracy McVeigh | August 22, 2015

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.

<more at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/22/autism-creative-thinking-study; related links: https://edinburghfestival.list.co.uk/event/482874-the-misfit-analysis/ (The Misfit Analysis) and http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-015-2518-2 (The Relationship Between Subthreshold Autistic Traits, Ambiguous Figure Perception and Divergent Thinking. Catherine Best, Shruti Arora, Fiona Porter, Martin Doherty. August 14, 2015. [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.]>