Is Aspergers genetic or not?

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That's one thing that's helped a lot with my daughter - we make sure to speak of bad behavior, not telling her she's "being bad" (i.e., "That [specific behavior] was a very naughty thing to do," not "You're being a bad girl!" Because she's not).

Actually, my wife prefers to refer to it as "acting like a big girl" or "not acting like a big girl", although I suspect this will lose much of its impact in about six years, when she becomes a teenager...

I have AS (not officially diagnosed, but no one has disagreed so far). My daughter, younger sister, and at least two cousins are autistic. I strongly suspect my father and at least three uncles of being on the spectrum as well (although to diagnose Dad, I'd need a competent psychiatrist who is also a medium, as he died the year before my daughter was born). At least one of my nephews has been diagnosed with AS and ADHD. As I'm fond of observing, autism doesn't run in our family - it strolls, paying prolonged visits, sticking around for coffee, saying "hi" to the grandkids...

I find it so odd that you've encountered so many people who are either not aware of or refusing to buy into the genetics theory. Are you surrounded by metals contamination people?

The leading theories tend to believe that there is a combination of genes involved, and that the condition can be aggregravated (possibly mimiced) by environmental factors. You get clusters of autism in all the tech industry areas; where I live being one of them. The theory here is that people either with mild AS or a few AS traits get married, each having part of the genes towards autism (given how the tech industries attrack AS or partial AS types), and together produce a child that has more of the genes and, thus, exhibits more intense autism.

Add in environmental factors, and you may have a child that is more severely impaired than the genes themselves would have indicated. As for what those environmental factors might be, no one seems to have successfully identified them, and it is, again, probably a whole combination of things.

You can easily see in my family that it is genetic. I have read that it is THE most inheritable condition. My son's doctor thinks that the rise in numbers is a combination of heredity and environment.

I read that last night, and loved it. I've "heard" it all before, but that was so well written and entertaining Thank you for the link

DeaconBlues Yah, I had to be very clear that it was the behaviour and not himself that was bad.... boy howdy, he is litteral! We've worked on his ability to work things out, or ignore people if they say something that litterally hurts him (like saying he was bad). He has to "think about who is saying that" and that they can be wrong, and hurtful and totally out of line. His mind (used to) think what was said must be true. Now, he rarely accepts bad comments unless it's from a trusted source (a teacher, parent, grandparent) and we are all careful! So I still have to watch it! LOL.

No, not "the most inheritable condition"--it has incomplete penetrance still, but very high heritability.

I think prenatal factors may play into it, especially very early in the pregnancy; for example, we know that women who have rubella during pregnancy have a higher chance of having autistic children, and that children with older parents are more likely to have autism. I think that such physical stresses can nudge a child from "broader autism phenotype" to autism proper.

The heritability (percent of any particular case of autism spectrum disorder due to genetics) is around 90% for the entire spectrum, and about 50% for Kanner's autism. I think that also has to do with the fact that a good prenatal environment can easily make the difference between a child learning to speak at age two, versus learning to speak at three; most classic auties do learn to speak, after all, so it's not like we're drawing the line between "completely nonverbal" and "little professor lecture".

Oh, yes--and, out of six members of my family, four have autism.

This was one of the first articles I read when it was suggested my son might have AS, and it completely hit home for me then. It made so much sense. And its still relevent after all these years

I belive its genetic lots of mental illness of all sorts in my family. My great uncle had a break down as a child that sounds alot like he was a on the spectrum. Saddly the doctors talked my great grandparents in to a lobotmy so I can never be sure as he was altered long before I was born. Every I've meet from that part of the family is at very lest a little odd. All part of my family is rife with mental illness of one kind or some other. To tell the truth have an austic son is far better then what could have happened and I've stopped having childern while I feel I'm ahead.

Yeah!

I like that article. There's a lot of truth in it. My Mum is a pharmacist and my Dad is an accountant. My sister, however, is a psy and, unbelievably to me, is NT!

Interestingly, there are loads of talents in my family as well as learning disabilities. All of my aunties, uncles and cousins are super-intelligent and super-successful. One of my Mum's sisters has perfect pitch and is an awesome pianist, and my Mum's other sister is the headmistress of a top private school. One of my Dad's brothers made enough money to retire so early that I don't ever remember him working and don't know what he did and my dad's other brother is a scientist. I've got 15 cousins, most of whom are highly intelligent. One of my cousins, has schizophrenia, one has dyslexia, and I have AS.

But hey, I am still talented, I just have a few issues and feel a bit inadequate because of them!