Autism Blog - Autistic Ape? He’s charming and wonderful and we love him, but he is different

15 Apr 2011

Author: Sullivan
Comments: 8

Autism

Autistic Ape? He’s charming and wonderful and we love him, but he is different

“He’s charming and wonderful and we love him, but he is different”. So says a researcher discussing Teco, a Bonobo in an article by Sarah DeWeerdt at the Simons Foundation SFARI blog. Here are the first couple of paragraphs:

Similarities between us and our closest ape relatives — chimpanzees and bonobos — have shaped our understanding of what it means to be human. The latest surprise is Teco, a young bonobo who shows behaviors that look suspiciously similar to those associated with autism.

Teco is the son of Kanzi, a 30-year-old bonobo whose use of symbols to communicate with humans made him famous. The two live with five other bonobos at the Great Ape Trust, a nonprofit research institute in Des Moines, Iowa, that is the site of a long-term study on ape language and culture.

Is Teco something akin to autistic? There’s really not enough information in the article to say, but it is still an excellent read.

Link to this post?

If you want to reference this post in your site, use the code below to link to me from your website.

<a href="http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2011/04/autistic-ape-hes-charming-and-wonderful-and-we-love-him-but-he-is-different/">Autistic Ape? He’s charming and wonderful and we love him, but he is different</a>

Comments

8 Responses to “Autistic Ape? He’s charming and wonderful and we love him, but he is different”

Red Headphones
April 16th, 2011
01:24:02

Did you see the trailer for the Rise of the Planet of the Apes….
McD
April 16th, 2011
05:47:36

This is absolutely fascinating. An autistic Bonobo! This could really expand research horizons in a number of directions. Very exciting!

I really hope someone shoves this up the nose of all those people who say that Autism ‘takes away’ that which makes us HUMAN.

Kanzi has been so interesting to follow, it is amazing that he has an autistic son. I had always suspected that Kanzi’s amazing language progress was due to his very early exposure as an infant while his mum was undergoing language training (same with his sister). But what if, just suppose, Kanzi was a Bonobo version of Aspergers? with Aspie verbal skills?
Sullivan
April 16th, 2011
14:53:36
Catherina
April 17th, 2011
14:25:28

I bet he was vaccinated ;)
stanley seigler
April 18th, 2011
21:09:51

[Catherina] I bet he was vaccinated ;)

i have a friend who swears his dog is autistic…the dog avoids eye contact; doesn’t speak (bark); doesn’t wag it tail and had been vaccinated…well dewormed…and friend believes the cause is dog was born under a full moon.

stanley seigler
Claudia
April 19th, 2011
14:56:26

Please Catherina, that has been proven without a doubt to be a falsehood, that vaccinations are linked to Autisum. Time to get over that one.
Kev
April 19th, 2011
15:50:46

She was joking Claudia ;)
stanley seigler
April 19th, 2011
17:16:35

[kev say] She was joking

as was i re autistic dog…

stanley seigler