It is really a bit hard to piece together because there are so many different perspectives people look at Autism from (with some of them conflicting), some studies have conflicting results, and Autism itself is somewhat poorly defined and is a broad spectrum with many possible characteristics and ways of presenting itself (and its subtypes are equally poorly defined, with widely varying and conflicting descriptions across academic papers). For example, Aspergers (which I am pretty sure is now rolled into high functioning autism and is not an independent diagnosis anymore) tend to have low visual intelligence and high verbal intelligence, but many studies simply say "Autistic people" tend to have higher visual intelligence than verbal intelligence. I can also find papers saying that Aspergers and High Functioning Autism (HFA) are BOTH types of high functioning autism (not HFA) with HFA people having visual intelligence strengths and verbal weaknesses, and Aspergers people having verbal strengths and visual weaknesses. Certainly low functioning Autistic savants tend to have exceptional long term visual memory while having very poor verbal memory, and people with aspergers (which is a type of high functioning autism, but possibly not HFA depending on who you ask) tend to have exceptional verbal memories with poor visual memories. The only conclusion I can really come to from reading papers on this subject, is that the people studying these things have widely varying opinions, use widely varying language and are generally very disorganized. ( Then again I guess I am expected to have knowledge of physics and a lack of ability to understand psychology, so maybe the issue is with me )  Here is an article about the visual intelligence of people with Autism. I imagine they studied people with low functioning Autism, although it does not specifically say so. I assume they mean low functioning autistic people simply because people with Aspergers have the opposite cognitive profile (ie: they have poor visual processing abilities and superior verbal processing abilities). http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110404093149.htm