Autism and Talent

Uta Frith studied experimental psychology in Germany and clinical psychology at the University of London's Institute of Psychiatry. Throughout her career she has worked as a research scientist funded mainly by the Medical Research Council UK. She is now Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Development at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Visiting Professor at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. Uta Frith's main focus of research are the developmental disorders of autism and dyslexia. In both fields she has pioneered an approach that combines experimental, neuropsychological and neuroscientific methods. She has contributed to the major theories explaining these disorders with the aim of relating the underlying cognitive causes of these disorders to specific brain systems. She has been awarded Fellowships of both the Royal Society and the British Academy Francesca Happe is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre at the Institute of Psychiatry (King's College London). She studied Experimental Psychology at Oxford, and did her PhD on autism at UCL. Her research interests centre on autism and Asperger Syndrome. She has conducted research into the nature of social understanding in typical development, and 'mind-reading' impairments in autism spectrum conditions. She is also actively engaged in studies of abilities and assets in people with autism, and their relation to detail-focused perceptual and cognitive style. As well as cognitive methods, her research involves functional imaging studies, exploration of acquired brain lesions and, most recently, behaviour genetic methods. She is the author of numerous research papers, and a book on autism for general readers.