I had gotten pretty close to finishing my report on my meta-analysis type thing investigating studies that have used the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test with a normal control group, with the aim of establishing what a normal score in that test actually is, but then I noticed a problem with one lot of data, and other things came up.....
Last time I checked the normal score on the RMET looked like being around 26 out of 36, pretty much the same score that the supposedly autistic male mathematician got in that book by Prof. Baron-Cohen.
As a side interest, I have also been collecting studies of autistic people and the RMET. I've been surprised at the small number of studies I've been able to find, using pretty much the same search strategies that I used to find over thirty published studies in which the RMET was used on control groups and people who have various other conditions and diseases. I suspect that there simply haven't been enough high quality studies done of autistic people and the RMET to establish what a genuinely typical autistic score on this test is. I haven't tried to compare male and female scores on this test, but I get the impression that sex differences are real but very small. One thing is for sure - a number of things influence scores on this test in ways that appear to have little to do with telling the difference between autistic and non-autistic or the difference between male and female.
Neat; I look forward to reading it!
ReplyDeleteI have been doing a series of posts on the empirical evidence for a link between testosterone and "autistic traits" --- nebulously defined as those are. One of them addresses the RMET, though not in a whole lot of detail.
Your piece looks most interesting! I hope to find the time to read it, and finish my thing too.
ReplyDeleteRight now I have more family dramas to sort out. You'd think a school for gifted kids would have a uniform that gifted kids with sensory hypersensitivity could bear to wear, given the fact that this condition is more common among the gifted.
Heh, I'm surprised a school for the gifted *HAS* uniforms. I was always really defiant and insistent on doing things my own way --- I would have fought against a uniform, I know.
ReplyDeleteI suspect many gifted/special needs kids are like that ... we have Ideas, and get mad at people who get in the way of us acting on our Ideas.
Oh yes, gifted kids can be defiant, yes indeed! I've got one going cheap at the moment.
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