Synaesthesia and autism

Julian Asher, Donnie Johnson, Carrie Allison, Simon Baron-Cohen

We identified a chromosomal region linked to synaesthesia that has previously been linked to autism which is the first piece of evidence for a connection between the two conditions. We are now investigating this potential connection and the accompanying implications for our understanding of both conditions. This study is comparing people with autism who also have synaesthesia to people with autism without synaesthesia, and also to synaesthetes without autism.

References

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A Whole-Genome Scan and Fine-Mapping Linkage Study of Auditory-Visual Synesthesia Reveals Evidence of Linkage to Chromosomes 2q24, 5q33, 6p12, and 12p12
American Journal of Human Genetics 84, 279-285

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Savant memory in a man with number-shape synaesthesia and Asperger Syndrome
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326: J. Asher, M. R. F. Aitken, N. Farooqi, S. Kurmani and S. Baron-Cohen (2006)
Diagnosing and phenotyping visual synaesthesia - a preliminary evaluation of the revised test of genuineness (TOG-R)
Cortex :137-146

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Perception in autistic children