Does Asperger's syndrome exist in other animal species? I once spent some time working on a dairy farm and it seems that one commonality between the cows is that they all have, let's say, quirks. but there was this one cow in particular who exhibited behavior of routinely remaining in precisely the same position every time she was going in to get milked. None of the other cows did this, and at one point the notion of autism struck me; I think it's something about the idea of repetitive behavior and the potential for a connection there. I'd like to know what you think and to be as expansive on this as possible.
It is difficult to identify autism definitively in other species, especially since autism encompasses a very diverse group of people who have different experiences.

However, because there is so much interest in studying autism, researchers have developed models for autism in model organisms, specifically in mice, which share some of the diagnostic features of autism.

Therefore, it is at least plausible that any social animal could have some individuals that share traits associated with autism, although it is going to be a matter of opinion whether these traits are autism or just something similar (at least until the mechanisms are better understood). Likely a repetitive behavior alone is not sufficient as a diagnostic criteria, but it could be one out of several.



Silverman, J. L., Yang, M., Lord, C., &amp; Crawley, J. N. (2010). Behavioural phenotyping assays for mouse models of autism. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11(7), 490.