If Asperger's is Genetic...

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Pan I don't want to flog anyone anything. I would like to make sure that drug companies don't scent blood and move in with intense, expensive pharmacological regimes when taking a social and educational route might be a more life fulfilling option rather than becoming reliant on medication.

To develop an adequate model of social and educational development that is pracitcable
in a social context requires explaining hard science in social terms.

This requires some degree of explanation in terms of social learning, even if you believe social learning is ultimately the result of biological processes. When it comes down to nuts and boltage of everyday life not everyone will be able to understand things in terms of neurology, cetainly not the caring agencies.

We need a social model as well. Child A has huge biochemical process going on in brain which can be measured in a lab. However child A isn't in a lab she is five and sitting in a school classroom. Care assistant in class doesn't comprehend biological/ cognitive processes process but knows child A is trying to say something to in class about color of plastic stickle brick and wants to encourage Child A to say some more about a plastic stickle brick, because this is the first time anyone has heard child A speak, unless it is about her SI.

That is the level most interaction takes place at . The social model works for dealing with interaction and understanding it at this level.

Last edited by memesplice on 15 Mar 2010, 1:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The interplay of autism and psychosis in terms of paternal and maternal genetic imprinting. Imprinting is something that will be covered in this week's genetics lecture. So, I had to read an article on it. It was most interesting. Energy levels and parental expenditures vs strength of genetic material. The more maternally imprinted, the more likely psychosis or emotional disorder will happen, but the child will be more docile, at least early on. The more paternal imprinting, the more the child will need care and attention, as they demand more energy from the mom. Also, the less emotional they will be. Think about highly systematizing vs highly empathetic minds. Anyone who wants to read this article should PM so I can send it to them. I am interested in sharing. It is just one facet of many, I am sure. This is only what I remember from reading it a week and a half ago.

My 17 YO daughter is as neurotypical as the day is long. Clearly she did not 'learn' Aspergian behaviors from me and I was her primary caregiver from birth through age 6, when she started school.

But I have a cousin on my father's side also formally diagnosed and my grandmother (dad's mom) would have surely been DXd Aspie had the DX existed when she was young.

My sister has a daughter diagnosed ADHD, whom I believe to show clear signs of Asperger Syndrome, but my sister and her other two children show no signs of anything other than one touch of dyslexia.

It clearly isn't handed down directly through all offspring, but I have no doubt Autism is a genetic anomaly, that crops up seemingly randomly within specific family trees. The randomness may be an illusion, it may depend on other genetic factors, in a manner similar to RH factoring in blood - some combinations produce compatibility, some do not.




That child was ME.

I did not 'learn' my Aspergian behaviors from my parents, who were the very social heart of their church - my father in fact was in the ministry for many years. I was dragged to church and social events CONSTANTLY and hated every torturous minute of it.

IMHO, children come out of the womb with their personalities already intact and social behaviors are learned selectively after that. The structure of your brain determines who you are to a much greater extent than most of us like to realize. I believe Autism is entirely genetic. I certainly didn't 'pick it up' by observing anyone.

My brothers sure didn't pick up on my dad and he has traits. My little brother has about four traits but you can't pick up on acute sense of smell. My dad does good with change and is flexible (except for his sports but he's gotten better) but my little brother had difficulty with transition to change. My mom hardly has any and I sure didn't pick up on her sensitivity to light. She is very NT.
I have better social skills than my dad. I had a mom who told me things he do was inappropriate and I didn't like all his behavior so I learned to not do that. It's ironic because I have the condition and he doesn't and I have better social skills than him. I don't think my dad even cares or takes the effort to change and I did care so that's why I changed.

Willard, I have two children and yes I would say a constant personality was there at birth , unique and individual to each of them.

That unique personality has taken aspects of social learning from me and synthesized it into the whole. Regarded some, disregarded the rest.

If I had been a church goer with a big open house one might not have been able to cope with what could be perceived as social chaos and the lack of routine. The other would have loved it.

If the more AS type of my children had been born in Sparta , for example, his brain would have had no problem assimilating the culture, because it was made for routine, intense repetition and training, with little social interaction not related to purposeful activity. The same child would have hated a big open house full of random people coming and going and being expected to communicate all the time.

Because I am more like my AS ( traits) child , I was inclined to teach him analytical skills where social skills can not be formulated, because that is what his one of his strength is and that is what will get him by , because he doesn't and will not comprehend all the buzz of social confusion in the way the more socially inclined of my children can. I can not explain to this child rules I do not understand myself in an environment in which I do not feel comfortable., and that has got to have some effect on who he has grown up to be- neither played football, never went a football match, but one became very good at martial arts, the other is just getting back into running and swimming, because those were the thing we enjoyed doing together. One is extremely sociable. confident is highly popular, but he never learned team sports and has no interest in them. He now explains "what the hell is happening" when he gets me to venture out .

They have learned some behaviors from me and their brains selected the terms on which they were accepted .


If we have the capacity to learn something, if its not written on the big chalkboard, we aren't going to ever learn it.

I cannot really make a worthy contribution, people before me have said much that is what I wanted to say.
But I think the idea of children being born as blank slates has been thrown out the window, so to speak, many years ago.

The interplay of autism and psychosis in terms of paternal and maternal genetic imprinting. Imprinting is something that will be covered in this week's genetics lecture. So, I had to read an article on it. It was most interesting. Energy levels and parental expenditures vs strength of genetic material. The more maternally imprinted, the more likely psychosis or emotional disorder will happen, but the child will be more docile, at least early on. The more paternal imprinting, the more the child will need care and attention, as they demand more energy from the mom. Also, the less emotional they will be. Think about highly systematizing vs highly empathetic minds. Anyone who wants to read this article should PM so I can send it to them. I am interested in sharing. It is just one facet of many, I am sure. This is only what I remember from reading it a week and a half ago.

I read the article and I am giving the author another title: "denial".

Understanding that someone can be biologically different is tremendously difficult. Even very "liberal" diversity-pushers sometimes put too much stock in the nurture side of identity. Stephen Pinker has a book on this topic that I have always wanted to read.

Genetic/Environment. This is why they do twin studies. Identical twins have identical genetics, but if you separate them (by adoption, generally), you can see what part of their phenotype comes from environment. Same with fraternal twins. They share 50 percent of their genes; compare them to siblings, compare them to fraternal twins raised apart. Do some math, and you get heritability.

Autism spectrum disorders have been shown to have a heritability in the in the 90-some percent.

I have my own theory about all this/cause.

I believe it has to do with undesirable conditions within the womb, to put it very simply.

I think complications in the womb could increase the risk of autism. My mum had RH negative blood and so her antibodies attacked all her children's red blood cells. I was the last and most at risk of brain injury or being still born. Though my mum says I was fine and that my sister was the one at risk. She's always changing her stories because before she made it sound like I was the one most at risk. I'm her only child with officially dx'd AS and learning disorders.
Anywho, I was delivered earlier and I read an article about premi babies having less brain development than full term babies.
My dad was also on the spectrum which could gave increased my chances of having AS. I also think my mum has ADHD which is probably why I have some traits. My siblings also have AS traits, just not enough to interfere with their lives.

Just a nitpick about the article,

I don't know where you get your information, but virtually all of the "miracle cure" people are the ones that think that autism is caused by mercury poisoning and eating wheat and dairy. Haven't you read any of the advertisements in this place?

In fact, I've never seen a proponent of the genetic theory claiming any extreme cures. The closest you'll get is encouragement of self-monitoring and extra guidance for weak spots.

Mixed feelings.

1. Most all medical treatments and "miracle drugs" would not affect a genetic condition. Only gene therapy could do that. So, you are incorrect that the "genetic" label would be a way to market stuff for Big Pharma. Calling it a chemical imbalance would work better to that end.

2. I see your point about learned behavior. The problem is where do you draw the line? If AS is the product of learned behavior, than a person with AS who is surrounded by more NT people would quickly learn proper habits and adapt to a NT world. That we do not do that indicates it is more than just a learned condition.

A dysfunctional family can make a kid really messed up, but that kid can still grow up, leave the environment, and change into a more stable and functional person.

It's genetic but not in the way everyone thinks.

You can't inherit Autism, you inherit a biological weakness that makes you almost definitely get it in the end.
The study has already been done with identical twins, many instances only 1 has Autism this makes inheriting autism itself impossible, although the other twin is far more likely too which again strengthens the argument of a biological weakness.

One of the theories is the weakness is low/no gluthathoine in Autistic individuals. This is where a massive chain reaction begins to take place.

Which is what flushes metals out of the body, there has been an incredible amount of evidence regarding it Autism being caused by Mercury poisoning.
A lot of people are naive and disregard this as a possibility due to chuckling and saying "where does the mercury come from?", well if your mother has amalgam fillings a rather potent amount of it gets laced in breast milk so there's a start. Not to mention we eat/breathe mercury every day, and if we can't flush it out it builds up.
Testing for it isn't reliable either, it doesn't spread consistently through the body, it might not be in the hair/blood/urine/biopsy sample that is taken. It's not as straight forward as that. I had to have a bentonite clay bath (which sucks the mercury out of you and into the clay) and scoop the clay off the bath floor into a container to get it tested. The result is it contained mercury as I knew it would. Before that the hair and blood tests came back negative. If I hadn't found on the net that the tests were unreliable, I would've accepted that I didn't have Mercury poisoning and given up on it as a lot probably already have.

Mercury then blocks the DPP IV enzyme that digests gluten and casein, without it those peptides become undigested and tear the intestine apart causing yeast overgrowth. Then those peptides get into the blood and are morphines and cling onto opiate receptors in the frontal lobe. This also attributes too Autistic symptoms.
A lot of people on here say it's a myth, they're naive. Multiple studies have been done. One the discovery of these peptides in the blood (proving leaky gut syndrome) and the other, discovering them in the urine of autistic patients (proving a missing DPP IV enzyme. Another factor is Mercury is a leading cause of yeast overgrowth.

And finally autistic patients have low levels of oxytocin in the blood, which is the hormone responsible for empathy and trust and many other things. Oxytocin is created by the hypothalamus. Mercury damages the hypothalamus and can inhibit oxytocin release. Thank god they've finally got onto this and are now making a nasal spray which has already showed incredible results. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 221350.htm (Previous studies that measured the levels of this hormone in the blood of patients showed that it was deficient in those with autism.)

Everything listed above is fact, although the links I'm making between the facts are my theory.

If it's not mercury, then we need to ask what else can cease DPP IV and oxytocin production, create a yeast infection, finger flapping, ear infections, tinnitus, routines, social issues, basically EVERY autsitic symptom (and there's like 200 of them) is also apparent in Mercury poisoning. It would be extremely unlikely if it was anything else other than Mercury.

Too many people on this forum are naive and small minded when it comes to discussing the topic of mercury poisoning. So I ask you to instead of deeming it as absurd, ask me what you find absurd about it and your misconception will be clarified.

Scroll down the page to find a table comparing the 2 illnesses http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/thimerosal.php.

This explains the spectrum and the many different combinations of Autism. impaired level/low functioning autism however is said to be a result of fragile x.

This paragraph is fallacious. It is not logical to believe that an inherited trait is a negative. I know I inherited my stature and features from my mother. I happen to think both things are a positive.

I prefer to read things that are logical.