AS: Hereditary or other factors?

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I had a difficult birth, natural with forceps, feet first, I almost suffocated. Was very difficult for my mom.

My dad is a clear Aspie, his sister is autistic. I can remember their mother as non-verbal, unempathetic and rocking alot. His cousins are all engineers, artists, 1 professor and very reclusive. None of them married.

Some of my cousins from my mom's side have Tourette's, ADD or dyslexia. My mom shows many traits of NPD

I am an engineer and a part time artist and given my long list of Aspie traits and family tree I don't doubt my self-diagnosis at all.

we have big heads?

Most, but not all, cases of autism are predominately genetic in origin. A small number are the result of a difficult birth.
It takes up to 20 genes in combination, and other factors, to produce an ASD. The genes can be present in a family, but not "visable". Say the mother has 11 and is NT, the father has 8 and is NT, the kid gets 15 and has an ASD.

A poll like this is fun, BUT remember a large percentage of births are complicated: 10% c-section + all other kinds of complications. So if you asked an NT population, you might see just as many complicated deliveries, that did not lead to autism.
Also, the people who take this poll may be the one's who had complicated deliveries, as the subject may interest them more than it does other people.

My dad is Aspie, my younger cousin is likely Aspie, and there are several others who show some traits in varying degrees.

Yep - statistically.
Maybe the overgrowth of Purkinje cells in utero and early life. It levels out.

Also (statistically) more digit fusions and other minor stuff.

Digit fusions? Really? I have no idea what size my head was at birth, but I have two toes connected on each foot. Is there research on that?

i have a cousin with that...(mom's side)

Cool! So does my son! Second and third toe on each foot!

Digit fusion is statistically significant, but unexplained.
I read about it in a book called "the Genetics of the Autistic Syndromes" by C. Gilberg (maybe Gillberg.)
Great book that postulates that many different conditions effect the same final pathway in the brain, and therefore produce similar behaviour. The kids are all "autistic" when you observe them, but for different genetic reasons.

My homegrown theory is that something that effects programmed cell death goes wrong, meaning too many cells in the brain, were many of them usually die from programmed cell death, and skin between toes/fingers, which is normal early in developement, but it usually disappears because of programmed cell death before the 12th week.

Also, my cousin with the connected toes has an enourmous head...(he is also very tall) I don't know whether he is an aspie..have not spoken to him in years...we used to get along really well though.

I am pretty sure I have a normal-sized head. I do wear mens large hats, but my head does not seem particularly large...

Geneticly, intellect-wise (compared to many of my family members) I seem to have gotten the fuzzy end of the lollipop (not as smart as the other members of my family)...sometimes wonder if that was caused more by outside factors (birth difficulty/head trauma etc....)

No diagnosed autistic person in my close or broad away family. I'm... special.

My mother's side of the family does show some traits that could maybe be AS tarits though. But then maybe not. I'm not a diagnostician.

My birth was kinda uncomplicated and complicated.

At first the doctors decided it was a critical situation because the amniotic fluid was stained by Meconium. After everything went fast and perfect and after I scored a perfect Apgar score of 9/10/10 they changed it back to uncritical pregnancy.

Concerning head size: it's as a baby, not older (if one goes to Tony Attwood's website, you can hear him talk about Asperger's down the bottom left of the page, and he mentions the large head as a baby).

I have duck feet.

As in skin between your toes = webbed toes?

I think I got it from my father and his mother. My father is the typical Engineer case.

Ahh, I was wondering about that. I had a large head for all my childhood and at least since 3/4 months (before that it was below average like height/weight).



Duck feet like each tip goes to the outside and doesn't point forward? That position which is perfect for ballet?

That's what I'd call duck feet. Because that's like mine and I got told they look like the feet of ducks.

I believe my father was an undiagnosed aspie unless no-one told me that is. One of my children did a good impression of meltdown behaviour too and appears to be borderline.

I clicked the wrong poll choice, it should have been the first one and not the second ooops!

Hmmm.... hadn't heard that before, but I find it quite interesting, as my son had a big head, and I've always thought it is bigger proportionately than the rest of his body. Does anyone have any further information on this?