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Question re. Autistic adults having children

Jack

My eldest daughter, in her mid 20's, has Semantic Pragmatic Disorder.

She recently met a young lad who is aware of this but can see past it and takes her for who she is.

She disclosed to my wife that she doesn't want children, which is fair enough, though sadly followed that up by saying that they would probably have autism of one sort or another.

Is anyone aware of studies which have been carried out which can suggest if this is true or not ?

Many thanks

Parents

  • Twin studies show that if one of identical twins is autistic there's something like an 85% chance that the other one will be too.

    That suggests that there is a very strong genetic component to autism.

    Now, as for the question of whether your daughter is likely to have autistic children, that will depend on the father too!

    I don't think enough is known about the genetics to give likelyhoods, but lets consider some simple genetic examples.

    Say there are three genes A, B, C, which are all involved in autism. But, for example, having 1 means you're not autistic, having two means you have Asperger's, and all three gives you classic Autism.

    Now, even if both parents carry all three genes there is a chance that none of them will end up in the child, 1 of them will, 2 of them will, or all three will.

    It then gets even more complicated because many genetic conditions require two copies of a gene to be present (so both parents need to have and it needs to be passed on the baby from both), and others only need one copy.

    So, you see, having Autism doesn't guarentee you'll have autistic children, and not having autism doesn't guarentee that you won't.

    These things just change the likelyhood of having an autistic child.

Reply

  • Twin studies show that if one of identical twins is autistic there's something like an 85% chance that the other one will be too.

    That suggests that there is a very strong genetic component to autism.

    Now, as for the question of whether your daughter is likely to have autistic children, that will depend on the father too!

    I don't think enough is known about the genetics to give likelyhoods, but lets consider some simple genetic examples.

    Say there are three genes A, B, C, which are all involved in autism. But, for example, having 1 means you're not autistic, having two means you have Asperger's, and all three gives you classic Autism.

    Now, even if both parents carry all three genes there is a chance that none of them will end up in the child, 1 of them will, 2 of them will, or all three will.

    It then gets even more complicated because many genetic conditions require two copies of a gene to be present (so both parents need to have and it needs to be passed on the baby from both), and others only need one copy.

    So, you see, having Autism doesn't guarentee you'll have autistic children, and not having autism doesn't guarentee that you won't.

    These things just change the likelyhood of having an autistic child.

Children
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