Is it genetic for you?

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I think I got it from my mother. She never went anywhere without my father, stayed at home all day pursuing solitary interests while we kids played outside, and I remember her telling us to be quiet and pretend no one was home when anyone would knock at the door. I can't know for sure though, and I never knew anyone else from her side of the family.

Close relatives who are aspies ... let's see, my wife is an aspie, does that help?

Seriously, just because there's a similarity to some relatives doesn't mean it's genetic. My father has some aspie traits and may be an aspie, and I could have inherited them genetically - but on the other hand I could have inherited them through family environment, because I used him as a role model or because aspie parenting style tends to produce aspie children.

From my mother's side, ADHD. So much ADHD. Also, one of my second cousins is autistic.

From my father's side, Asperger's Syndrome. So many accountants, and my father and one of my aunts has traits (even if they were not themselves autistic. I do think my father is autistic). I suspect one of my cousins may have AS and/or ADHD as well, but that is due to history and not because of observation of any traits (I haven't spoken to him in literal years).

I think so. My dad is even more autistic than me, except he has strong special interest and strong focus. So he did quite well as a scientist. He married a social butterfly so that probably helped a lot with social network needs, as he doesn't seem to have a single friend of his own.

My dad has an ASD, my mum has ADHD. I got both.

Sometimes I think think you are my exact double from an alternate reality.

My dad is not diagnosed but my mom and I think he has it................he's more intelligent than I am though and better able to cope with the symptoms. I don't think my mom has it but she has some symptoms...for example she has really severe sensory issues and she's very introverted and doesn't like to socialize very much.............although she's definitely not socially clueless.

My mom is most definitely an Aspie. Her brother (my uncle) is, as well. I have a few cousins with an ASD on the other side of my family, and both of my brothers are on the spectrum.

Actually, there's a lot of evidence that autistic spectrum disorders are genetic. They may be epigenetic, and I think there's evidence for that as well (say twins when both are not autistic).

I think the idea that an "aspie parenting style" (let's call this the "refrigerator mother theory") causes autism has largely been abandoned.

Maybe not, but that isn't some random idea I pulled out of nowhere. It is thought by the scientists who study it to be genetic.

If I got it from anyone, it'd be my Dad, though I have no idea where he got it. I take after him. A lot.
He worked in a very authoritative position for many years. He's likely the smartest person I know.

My mother is intelligent, too, but very NT. She's adopted, so I'm unsure of her genetic history.

I have no genetic siblings, and neither do my parents.

Both parents have strong autistic traits and probably could be diagnosed. Double-whammy.

So true. My dad may have had an ASD, actually it's blatantly obvious but he was not in my life. My mum raised me and my dad visited on the weekends, sometimes once a fortnight. Out of their four children (including children from previous marriages) I am the only autistic. My eldest sister and brother have the less traits, apart from my brother's very AS curiosity and memory and his hyperactivity as a child, but my sister closer to my age has some traits and my half brother has narrow interests but is still an NT.

In closing, it is neither parents fault that I'm autistic with ADHD. They really couldn't control which way my brain developed. Most times parents want to make their children have more normal behavior, which which dispel any refrigerator mother myths.

It's genetic. Twin studies and adoption studies have put the heritability at anywhere from 85-97% for the autism spectrum as a whole, which is higher than any other mental disorder that doesn't have a single gene responsible for it.

(Vocab lesson: "Heritability" refers to "the percentage of the average case that is due to genetic factors." So, autism tends to be almost entirely genetic, with some influence from the environment--most likely prenantal factors.)

I have no full siblings - my sister is my half-sister with a different father, and then I have stepsisters. As far as I know, my father has no other children other than those he adopted when he married - and my actual parents were never married. So I have no comparison.

But yes, I don't think there's any serious evidence for refrigerator parenting (or Gabor Mate's variation with ADHD being a form of reactive attachment disorder).

Oh, and I did love your comment about being from an alternate reality.

Yeah, I think half the reason my mom is so intimidated by the idea of me being autistic is that she thinks she somehow caused it. I've told her over and over that it isn't her fault, but she still seems to want to blame it on something--my MMR shot, my growing up without a father, whatever nutritional supplement she's convinced I didn't get enough of. I guess she's scared by the idea that she really couldn't control that I was born autistic; that it was just in our genes, mine and hers both, and that it was inevitable. Maybe it makes her feel more helpless to realize that she never had control over it. I guess she'll never really get it until she realizes disability isn't an automatically negative, horrible thing. If she realized that, maybe she'd stop looking for something to blame and realize it's just a neutral fact of life, like my having been born a girl.

I keep running into so much stuff with my mother, she blamed so many things for my lack of independent living skills, and it would just get downright ridiculous when she'd point to situations I ended up in because of that lack as the reason for that lack, and I actually nearly had a meltdown because of it.

She hasn't tried to blame herself, though. Not surprising. I am also still grudgey with her for telling relatives that I was lazy and unwilling to "do for myself" when I finally ran options and had nowhere to go but back with family.