A recent study reported that children with pronounced autistic traits tend to show lower levels of creativity overall. However, children with high attention to detail, a specific autistic trait, demonstrated better creativity. The research was published in the Journal of Creative Behavior.
Autism spectrum disorder, or autism, is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects how individuals perceive and interact with the world. It is characterized by challenges in social communication and interaction, as well as restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities. Many people with autism have intense interests in specific subjects and excel in areas such as attention to detail and pattern recognition.
The term “spectrum” in autism refers to the wide range of symptoms and abilities it encompasses. Some individuals require significant support in daily life, while others can live independently. Autism is a matter of degree, and this degree is expressed through autistic traits. These traits are psychological characteristics associated with autism spectrum disorder that can vary in presence and intensity among individuals.
Study author Rebecca Seems and her colleagues aimed to explore the connections between autistic traits and creativity. They hypothesized that individuals with lower imagination, an autistic trait, would show lower performance in all domains of creativity. In contrast, they believed that attention to detail, another autistic trait, would not be associated with creativity. They also posited that the overall severity of autistic traits and deficits in core skills would not be linked to artistic creativity.
The study involved 118 children and 138 parents from 18 different schools in England. The children were between 10 and 14 years old, and 46% of them were girls. These participants were already part of the Multisense project, which investigates various developmental characteristics in school-aged children.
Participating parents completed assessments of their children’s autism (using the Autism-Spectrum Quotient – Adolescent Version Questionnaire), creativity (using the Parental Evaluation of Children’s Creativity), and artistic skills (using items from two different assessments). The children also completed assessments of their creative artistic career aspirations and rated their preferences for creative artistic school subjects.
The results showed that children with higher overall severity of autistic traits (as measured by the AQ-Total score) tended to have lower scores on creativity assessments provided by their parents. However, this severity was not associated with their preferences for creative school subjects, artistic talent, or aspirations towards artistic careers.
As expected, children with more difficulties in imaginative processes (AQ-Imagination) tended to have lower artistic talent and lower preference for artistic subjects in school. On the other hand, children scoring higher on attention to detail tended to have somewhat higher creative capabilities and slightly greater artistic talent compared to children with less pronounced attention to detail.
“Our study shows that creative personality traits pertinent to creativity were predicted by core and non-core autistic traits (both positively and negatively), whereas creative artistic choices and artistic talent were linked only to non-core autistic traits. These findings were drawn from our general population based on autistic traits, although our findings mirror similar results in autistic populations,” the study authors concluded.
This study sheds light on the links between autism and creativity. However, it is important to note that the research was conducted on schoolchildren from the general population of England, not specifically on children diagnosed with autism. The study assessed autistic traits in children without an autism diagnosis, so the results might differ for children diagnosed with autism.
The paper, “Are Children with Autistic Traits More or Less Creative? Links between Autistic Traits and Creative Attributes in Children,” was authored by Rebecca Seems, Julia Simner, and Louisa J. Rinaldi.