Psychologist questions notion that children with autism are often mentally retarded (extract)

SALEM, Oregon, USA: The conventional wisdom that children with autism are often mentally retarded may be wrong, according to research by a Willamette University professor. Dr Meredyth Goldberg Edelson, who trained as a clinical child psychologist, has discovered that decades of literature linking autism with retardation were based on flawed assertions or contained no empirical research at all.
       Mental retardation - as contrasted with the less precise term "mentally disabled" - is defined by professionals as a disability that occurs before the age of 18, characterised by an intelligence quotient under 70 and serious limitations in social and adaptive skills.
       Dr Goldberg Edelson reviewed 215 studies on autism, dating back to 1937, which made 223 claims about the rates of mental retardation in autism. Only 58 of those claims were supported by data, she found, and most researchers stated their results without reporting how they measured intelligence … 

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