Given the dizzying complexity of the human brain, it’s little wonder
that things often go wrong in the course of neural development. When
the brain is damaged before birth, for example through lack of oxygen,
this can give rise to conditions like cerebral palsy, which is associated
with motor-control problems. Other developmental conditions, such
as Down’s Syndrome, have direct genetic causes. This chapter will
focus on three developmental conditions that continue to attract
a great deal of attention from psychologists – autism, ADHD and
Tourette’s – not least because of their profound effects on behaviour.
The exact causes of these conditions remains unknown, although
genetic influences clearly play a role. Dyslexia and dyscalculia, which
have specific implications for education, are dealt with in Chapter 21.
Autism
Mention autism and people often think of Dustin Hoffman’s character
Raymond Babbitt in the 1988 multi-Oscar winning film Rain Man (see
p.319), or, more recently, of Lisbeth Salander, the heroine of Stieg Lars-
son’s best-selling Millennium trilogy. In fact, these characters only give
a partial view of the condition. Babbitt was actually an autistic savant,
meaning that he displayed not only the social and communication
problems associated with autism, the narrow interests and repetitive
behaviour, but also exceptional skills, such as an encyclopaedic memory
and the ability to calculate the day of the week for any given date. Simi-
larly, Salander is portrayed as a genius computer-hacker. In reality,
however, only a minority of people with autism – around one in ten –
have these kind of savant skills.
Autism is not something you either have or you don’t. It’s more like
a spectrum of varying degrees of severity. People who display many of