An eight-year study by British researchers has linked high levels of testosterone in the womb to increased incidence of autistic traits later in life.
Dr. Simon Baron Cohen, the director of the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge University and pioneer of the theory that autism is an extreme form of the "male brain," presented these findings at the British Association's Science Festival at York University last week. His study followed the children of 235 women who underwent amniocentesis while pregnant. These children were followed from birth to eight years and were tested for autistic-like behavior at regular intervals.
Results showed that children from wombs with high testosterone levels began exhibiting autistic traits early in life: At age one, they made less eye contact with their mothers and had smaller vocabularies at 18 months. By age four, these children had a harder time fitting in to new social groups and were less curious than their peers. At age eight, these children performed better on pattern recognition tests but poorly on empathy tests.
Read more: Testosterone in womb link to autism
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