A child's future really may be written in his hands-not in the creases of his palms but in the relative lengths of his fingers. A report just published in Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology suggests that people with autism have ring fingers that are abnormally long compared with their index fingers.
Children with autism have trouble interacting with other people. Both their verbal and their gesture-based comunication is poor, and they often have low intelligence. Early symptoms -a failure to point at things, follow the gaze of someone else, or engage in pretend paly- are often obvious by the tender age of 18 months. About one child in 500 suffers from the condition.
Two British researchers, who have studied what fingers can indicate about everything from fertility to sexual preference, have observed 72 autistic children and 23 with Asperger's syndrome, a related condition in wich the individual's intelligence is not affected.
The scientists photocopied the children's hands, and carefully measured the lengths of their fingers from the copies. They worked out the ratio of the length of the index finger to the length of the ring finger for each child, and compared it with those of their relatives.
The researchers found that autistic children had extremely long ring fingers compared with their index fingers. Children with Asperger's also had abnormal index-to-ring finger ratios, though less so than autistics. Even the unaffected relatives of the autistic children had ratios that differed significantly from the average lengths.
Are the following statements TRUE or FALSE? Copy the evidence from the text. No marks are
given for only TRUE or FALSE.
Autistic children have index and ring fingers of the same length
Autism in children cannot be perceived before the age of two
Explicación: Para la primera afirmación el párrafo
relevante es:
"A report published in “Developmental Medicine in Child Neurology” suggests that people with autism have ring fingers that are abnormally long compared with their index fingers."
La respuesta es falsa ya que según el informe al que nos remite el texto, la gente que sufre de autismo tiene el dedo anular significativamente más largo que el dedo Ãndice. A lo largo de todo el texto se nos explica cómo un estudio ha desvelado que los niños autistas tienen una proporción anormal entre la longitud de sus dedos Ãndice y anular.
Mientras que para la segunda es:
"Early symptoms – a failure to point at things, follow the gaze of someone else, or engage in pretend play- are often obvious by the tender age of 18 months."
Según el texto, sÃntomas de autismo como la incapacidad de señalar los objetos o seguir la mirada de alguien pueden detectarse a los 18 meses, por lo tanto sà que se puede percibir el autismo en un niño antes de los 2 años.