An interesting article in the latest edition of Oxford Today on the ambitions of one academic to improve the university’s reputation for research into autism.
The interview with Professor Geoff Bird, Tutorial Fellow in Psychology at Brasenose College, is well worth reading, especially his thoughts on empathy, lack of empathy, and alexithymia.
Alexithymia. No, I hadn’t heard of it either until now (and my spellchecker doesn’t recognise it!) , but it may increase in significance amongst a wider non-academic audience.
Professor Bird also has some stimulating comments on autism and sleeping difficulties, and on the ‘stalling’ of research into autism: ‘There have been excellent cognitive theories about what autism might be. Yet for all that, we have no idea what the genes are for autism; we can’t find the brain abnormality for autism. We have really struggled to find the problem to be solved.’