Autism test 'could hit maths skills'

The prospect of a prenatal test for autism, allowing couples to choose whether to have a baby with the condition, is coming closer. And with it also comes the possibility of a prenatal drug treatment being developed.

But in this week's Scrubbing Up, leading autism expert Professor Simon Baron-Cohen warns caution is needed to ensure associated talents, like numerical abilities, are not lost if the test or a "cure" become available.

Males, maths and autism. On the face of it, these three things don't appear to be linked. And yet they are.

Males are much more likely to apply to university to study maths, for example.

In 2007, three quarters of applicants to read maths at Cambridge were male, as were 90% of applicants for the computer sciences degree.

Cambridge is not unique in this way. So why are males so attracted to studying maths?

And why, in over 100 years of the existence of the Fields Medal, maths' Nobel Prize, have none of the winners have ever been a woman?

Similarly, people with autism are much more likely to be male. Among those with classic autism, which includes a developmental delay in language and a risk of learning difficulties, males outnumber females by four to one.

And among those with Asperger Syndrome, males outnumber females by nine to one.

People with the condition talk at a normal age and have at least an average IQ, but share the social and communication difficulties of those with classic autism, as well as the narrow - even obsessive - interests and love of repetition.