%A Robin P Clarke %J Personality and Individual Differences %T A Theory of General Reduction of Gene-Expression Manifesting as Autism (1993 with 2014 revisions of presentation) %X This paper was originally written for a very different audience around 25 years ago, since when a great deal has changed both in autism research and in the wider world. Thus there was no mention of mercury (of which I knew almost nothing at the time) or of the autism increase (of which no-one else knew much either back then). And also I have become much more experienced in writing than back then. And paper-printed journals were very hostile to ?excessive? length such that at least one paragraph got rather more squashed than I am happy to see it now. So for these reasons I am making some minor changes to the writing, which do not change the actual content or meaning but which make for a better reading experience. For the convenience of cynics I will list all those changes at the end. In addition I am adding in some update notes in the text, indicated thus: [2014 Update: blah blah...] %K autism, theory, IQ, gene-expression %P 465-482 %V 14 %D 2014 %I Pergamon Press %L cogprints9812