can autism run in 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.

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.