Montreal, Cananda – “Trigger-Threshold-Target, a Montreal based research has released a model that might explain how Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) develop in the brain. According to the model released, ASD develop when natural predispositions and genetic mutations cause the brain to be plastic or malleable.
This plasticity allows visual and auditory perception take over the part of the brain used for other functions explains lead researcher Laurent Mottron, professor at the Universite de Montreal. This may also explain why people with ASD have better perception skills than social skills.
Lead researcher Mottron stated in the Montreal Gazette:
“Usually this was considered a compensation for the other things that they cannot do, buith this new model, we considered that this enhanced perceptual functioning … is not secondary, or a consequence, but may be the first causal element of the chain.”
This model would then change how ASD therapies would be offered.
Children diagnosed with autism grow like other children. However, the brain’s changes cannot be reversed. With that in mind educators and families should work to bring forward and develop each child’s individual strengths rather than spending time and energy on skills that are difficult for them and may never be achieved.
The original article by Garrett Barry in the Montreal Gazette can be read here