In fact, newer studies suggest that the autism advantage might extend even to domains that are thought to be the stronghold of neurotypical people, like creativity. A paper published last month in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders sought to measure the output of creative ideas in a sample of autistic and neurotypical people.

The participants were asked to think of as many non-obvious uses for a brick and a paper clip as possible. Highly autistic people in the experiment didn’t produce very many responses, but the answers they did give were highly unusual—a strong sign of creative thinking.

Neurotypical participants would think of all the easy answers—like using the paperclip to reset their iPhones—and only then move on to more innovative uses. But the autistic people jumped straight to the ingenious responses, saying they would use the paperclip as a weight for the front of a paper airplane, for example, or for heating up in order to suture a wound.

“Most people focus on one property of the object and do associations with that,” Best explained. “They might say, ‘Oh, it’s like a piece of wire. What else can you do with wire?’ People with autistic traits skip to the more difficult stuff.”