I've heard a lot about more than one member of the family having autism so I think it could be true. I'm not sure though. I'm the only one of my family to have been diagnosed with autism but as soon as I got a diagnosis, we all felt like we got a diagnosis as we didn't know about it before and most my family have the social and routine problems. So it actually helped all of us a lot in learning to strategise on ways to cope.
Hi, my dad is autistic and I've always been a loner. He moved to china when i was little to get away from everyone and I am chronically shy and self conscious. I sometimes sit behind a screen even when I'm alone because I want to feel enclosed.
I want friends but I hide away and am known as a recluse. the rare times I do see people socially I find it impossible to conjure up anything to say so just listen to them without really understanding. This hasn't stopped me from working (i always worked in secluded environments) but as I'm in my 30s now, I find it's getting worse and dont know what to do.
Some distinction needs to be made between autism in markedly disabling forms and higher functioning or Asperger's Syndrome.
My understanding from reading into this is that the progressive increase in cases of marked autism is much greater than the rate of increased diagnisis of aspergers. The latter may have something to do with greater success in diagnosing it. But marked autism appears to be increasing much more sharply. So there are arguments around whether asperger's is more genetic, but other factors are contributing to full autism.
One text on this is Richard Lathe's "Autism, Brain & Environment" Jessica Kingsley Publishers 2006, which looks at environmental factors.
Agreed it is all around academic debate, but there do seem to be differing rates of increase in diagnoses for different parts of the spectrum
Yes, autism is mostly genetic but not completely so because environmental factors such as prematurity, birth and pregnancy difficulties etc can activate the genetic predisposition that does not usually operate in isolation from the external environment.
Autism is not caused by a single gene but by an interaction between several 'vulnerability genes'. You can have these genes without having autism because to have the autistic syndrome you need to have an environmental trigger of some sort. THere is therefore no inevitability about having a second autistic child, although the odds are raised very slightly if you already have a child on the spectrum. The risk increases still more if there are multiple cases in the familly. As for mercury, lead, and MMR being responsible for a hypothisised rise in real cases of autism, there is no evidence at all that this is the case. Autism is not a disease caused by pathological toxins, it is primarily a genetic difference.
The main reason I ask is that my son was diagnosis as autistic 8 years ago & my new partner would like kids & I really do not know where to go for information about the possibility the genetic aspect as autism, as it looks like it runs in both are families.
There are theories around, criticised as unsound or unsupportable, but nevertheless attractive, that our greater mobility brings together parents with the genetic characteristics. These people wouldn't have met up in the past.
The classic one originating in America is software valley syndrome, suggesting that information technology brings together people with a geek disposition who then breed autistic children. I doubt this has much to support it however.
Up until the mid 19th century most people stayed in the parish of their birth. This is to do with the laws governing charity and the poor. The industrial revolution did a lot to change this as people migrated to towns. But the real mobility comes about from education and greater job mobility and access to jobs. It is just possible that more people are marrying where the disposition is in both parents.
However we cannot really know for sure. People didn't have to socially integrate on the scale we now experience until post World War II. In the past it was easier to be single or eccentric, and who knows what explained behaviours of individual family members when "one didn't discuss" so many things, and there was a lot more concealment, and a much larger out-of-sight mass of marginalised people. Look how many members of the royal family were placed in institutions for what we really do not know.
We don't have a long enough perspective to know if this was true. Diagnosis has only been going 20 to 30 years and judging from the numbers of adults now being diagnosed we were hardly picking up enough people in the first two decades. We can only really talk two generations maybe three - current children, parents around the late 20s to 30s and maybe parents around the 50s/60s.
There seems to be something in the idea it runs in families. For autism as distinct from aspergers there is a lot of literature on environmental factors such as mercury and lead. That may be greatly on the increase on account of how we poison our environment. Aspergers is less clear as to the cause.
