You cannot negate the effect of maternal androgens on the fetus, either. Although there are many cases of maternal virilization with no outward negative effect to the fetus, the mother's own testosterone has the potential to alter other aspects of development. Some maternal medications can also alter testosterone levels during pregnancy. The placenta does metabolize a great deal of maternal androgens, but this is a mesh barrier at best. If the hypothesis states that it is PREnatal testosterone exposure that changes neurodevelopment, than one must wonder what effect premature birth would have. If the testosterone was solely fetal in origin, than time of birth would have little impact. If the mother contributed to the increase in hormone, than birth timing needs to be considered.
The fraternal male birth order effect I mentioned is not conclusively proven, but there is a fair amount of evidence supporting it. Those who have found evidence of it do not have an explanation for it, but suspect it is some form of increased immune response to male fetuses (similar to the increasing rh- immune response in future fetuses). Now if there is no way to affect on androgen sensitivity, I wonder if the effect may somehow reduce prenatal androgen production in some way.
I did a quick search for the effect of early birth and androgen effect, but I didn't on a quick search. Wonder if anyone has done research based on the combination of prenatal androgen and birth timing. I would love to find some information on this myself for interest sake. Hopefully, it turns out to be a more positive effect for your DD.
I find these ideas quite fascinating. It is easier for me to wrap my head around a concrete biological idea as the basis of giftedness, because that is how my brain works best. I so constantly feel out of my element in talking about the subject that it is nice to have someone throw a bone in my direction so I can shake on it for a bit.
I am definitely a converted from nurture to nature person. It was more about not being aware of the nature side, which had me being a strong nurture advocate. However, my observations just did not add up by looking only at nurture.
Once I became aware of the nature side, a lot started to make sense. I still struggle with so many of the old ideas I have heard over the years on the nurture side. It is not that I believe nuture is not a factor, it is that nurture has different effects depending on the nature.
I am also happy to see someone looking into the biological side of these issues. It took me a bit to get back to you on this one as I hadn't looked much into this prenatal research for quite a few years. I have been trying to piece a lot of information together from a variety of different sciences related to cognitive research. For this reason, I am not often too deep into one area.
