Can homeschooling cause Asperger's Syndrome?

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...and the possible lack of social interaction with kids their own age.

...which like I say would be down to the parenting/lifestyle/views etc. not the home-educating. There are home-educating groups that meet up in many areas, other activities and all sorts. Please do some research! It's a myth that home-education automatically means no socialising. And a child could be at school (for which most of the time is spent in lessons) and go straight home and not ever see friends or socialise.

No, from all I've read it doesn't seem that could be the case, that homeschooling causes autism. You're either born autistic or not, as I understand it.

But social skills can be learned, and homeschooling can, if there are no social outlets at all, prevent already autistic children from learning and practicing some social skills that might help them feel and seem less autistic in the long run.

Well I don't have RRB's, and I'm not sure what a sensory issue is exactly, so maybe.

Like I said, I think I had something natural, but it may have been minor social issues related to NVLD and turned into full-blown autism and a moderate-functioning GAF of 50 as a result of conservative homeschooling. I also didn't get the help and intervention that many kids with similar issues to what I had would have gotten if they had grown up in more socio-economically endowed families. So the fact that my autism is fairly minor in the grand scheme of things has me wondering if, perhaps, I would have been an NT adult if I had grown up in a different environment.

Nature or nurture? I may never know.

If your only issues are social then you don't meet the diagnostic criteria for an ASD anyways.

I'm not sure what the criteria are, but I do meet them. I think the critieria also includes issues such as bad prosody (under reciprocal communication). I was diagnosed.

I don't have sufficiently repetitive movements or sufficiently narrow interests to qualify for Asperger's, and I had a slight speech delay as a child. So I have PDD-NOS.

I do wonder if homeschooling and bad parenting could either cause some of these issues or make existing ones worse.

I'm not sure what the criteria are, but I do meet them. I think the critieria also includes issues such as bad prosody (under reciprocal communication). I was diagnosed.

I don't have sufficiently repetitive movements or sufficiently narrow interests to qualify for Asperger's, and I had a slight speech delay as a child. So I have PDD-NOS.

I do wonder if homeschooling and bad parenting could either cause some of these issues or make existing ones worse.

No. 😐

Homeschooling cannot cause Asperger's Syndrome. Perhaps, not being surrounded by super-judgemental kids and teenagers could make someone less aware of social expectations, but it couldn't directly cause someone to become an Aspie.

AS is a neurological "disorder", which means that the brain is wired differently that causes the symptoms that are common to AS and Autism. So, no, simply not experiencing society because of homeschooling doesn't mean one has AS. What you're describing is simply social ineptitude brought on by a lack of real experience and can be remedied by simply going and having the experience, whereas those with AS (myself included) simply aren't able to fully grasp it. Granted there are those with AS who have integrated into society, but there are many who can't.

This is an interesting topic to me because I have severe ADHD and was completely isolated as a child, I too was homeschooled, in the middle of nowhere, and literally had no friends until I was 16. I had pretty much 0 contact with anybody outside my family that entire time.

I have heard a lot of speculation about causes of ADHD, and I've heard some people claim that homeschooling "causes" ADHD. I've also heard people claim that public schools are causing ADHD. Some think it's food or pollution or video games or television. There's a lot of theories out there, but that's all they are, is theories. There's not much, if any, scientific evidence to back them up.

There is, however, a lot of evidence that says that ADHD, and autism, are genetic.

Take my life as an example.

Research shows that if somebody in your family has bi-polar, you are more likely to have ADHD. My brother has bi-polar (he was not homeschooled.)

Also, ADHD runs in families. This seems to be the case, as ADHD is highly prevalent in my dad's side, but not my mom's side. I have at least 3 cousins with ADHD; and other aunts and uncles, who I barely know, all of which have been raised completely differently than I have, I would say about a third of them on that side have ADHD. (Which is a staggering number compared to the general populace.)

Besides that, the rate of ADHD has been rising (in reality it's just being recognized more often)-some people blame public school, as most people are diagnosed with ADHD are diagnosed in school. But that's just what it is, if you're in school, you're more likely to get diagnosed.

I also don't eat junk food or play video games or watch TV or any of that other stuff people claim cause ADHD.

So I rule out the environmental factor as all signs point to a genetic cause.

I am using ADHD as a parallel as they are both considered to be a part of the autistic spectrum and share the same genetics.

When comparing brains of a person with autism or ADHD, scientists can see actual physical differences in the brain, pointing to a different wiring. In fact, those with autism have more, but smaller, neurotransmitters than an NT.

All this is quite interesting and I encourage you to research a little bit if you don't already know about this.

With that in mind, let's see what effect being homeschooled has had on me, as we both were completely isolated in childhood.

I have ADHD. Ok, being homeschooled can explain some of the symptoms of ADHD-like impulsiveness and social problems, etc. but what about the hyperactivity, or any of the other numerous symptoms that I have that clearly line up with a neurological disorder? Like lack of an internal clock, insomnia, inability to gauge time, obsessive compulsive tendencies, too many thoughts, or sensory issues, for example. They can't really explain those. Also, what about all the people who have gone to public school being diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorders? That doesn't explain them, either.

I, too, have a lot of social problems. But, my problems are consistent with an ADHD diagnosis, not Asperger's. When I read a list of ADHD symptoms, I'm like, "Oh, that's TOTALLY me! Yeah!" But when I read a list of Asperger's symptoms, they don't really click with me. Only the ones that overlap with ADHD can I relate to. The others just aren't there. (For example, not being able to understand expressions, figures of speech, or recognize intentions and hidden meanings, etc. that are often listed as symptoms) So, even though we were both isolated and homeschooled as kids and grew up with developmental disorders... I show no signs of Asperger's (other than those consistent with ADHD) and you do. That points to a genetic cause, not an environmental factor. (But I totally think that being homeschooled makes social problems much worse in both situations for obvious reasons.)

So, no, I don't think that being homeschooled can cause Asperger's, or ADHD, or any form of autism for that matter. But I do think it can make the social aspect worse. You are either born with it or you're not (or in some rare cases you can develop it after a brain injury). If you weren't born with it, then what you have is not autism, it's a learned behaviour. But if that's the case perhaps you can reverse it (whereas if it was due to a different brain wiring you would not).

If you read up some more on the technical, physical aspects of it I believe you will reach the same conclusion, although there are a lot of different opinions too. Hope this helps! Best of luck.

Does homeschooling cause Asperger's? No, but Asperger's often leads to homeschooling.

Take a look at the pattern. There's research that obstacles to communication and social isolation might cause a change in brain function, more as the result of neurochemistry than by "wiring".



Not all interaction is equal. This is one of the reasons I worry about people who rely way too heavily on safe spaces and echo chambers to meet most of their social needs. Even if family seems safe, all families are dysfunctional to some degree and if your parents and siblings are your only opportunity for social interaction, you'll discover that what you perceive as normal may not be the norm with the general public. Having a 30 second conversation with the guy at the 7-Eleven isn't much of a social "reality check".

I had a friend who moved here from another country immediately after graduating from university, her biggest complaint about the U.S. was that it was populated by idiots. When she returned to her home country, she realized that the people around her (outside of campus) were not as intelligent as she remembered. The difference was, her "baseline" had changed while she was in college, and she was judging the people in her new country based on a skewed average.



Exactly this. I've often suspected that some stereotypical ASD traits may warrant further exploration, but that those traits may not be specific indicators of ASD.

Could the fact that my mother may have Asperger's Syndrome or be Broad Autistic Phenotype like my sister likely is change any of this analysis? After learning about my diagnosis, my father insists that my mother has it too. I really am not sure. She's my mother, so I'm not really going to judge her like that. But she and I do have some weird similarities. I don't think she has clinical levels, however, or that she ever did, though she has worse face blindness than anyone I know.

She takes everything literally and can't understand humor/sarcasm while I can pretty well, can't make small talk, while even I can to an extent. She definitely has narrow special interests about which she likes to talk while I grew out of that habit. But still...not sure, she seems more gracious, less blunt, and more in tune with social expectations than I am. I have a lot more empathy than she does, however.

If my mother were aspie or BAP, could this cause more severe autistic problems to develop in her homeschooled children if they have a shortage of other interactions?

Perhaps my sister--with her relatively minor social and expressive problems--is an example of an NT raised in this environment while, for whatever reason, my brother and I have co-morbid conditions that block our recovery. I know that my depression and anxiety prevent me from doing a lot of things to improve myself while my brother has bipolar disorder. I also have one of the severest cases of NVLD known to mankind.

I also have sexual abuse in my childhood history, which is known to cause Schizoid traits, which are easily confused with autism.

Add all this up, and I may easily qualify for an HFA/PDD-NOS diagnosis with a GAF of 50 7 years after ceasing to live in my home environment even though it may not have the same "cause" or "configuration" as most people who have the disorder equally severely. Doctors look only at symptoms, not what causes the disorder. Different things--genetic as well as environmental-- can cause the same symptoms.

What this could mean is that my (and my brother's) condition may be reversible. But how?

...I thought most of the stuff which you just said was implied in my previous posts.

What I was trying to say is that if a child goes to school, they'll get social interaction regardless of what their guardians are like.

I agree not all interaction is equal. And that can be illustrated by what I say below in bold! A dysfunctional family is dysfunctional whether the child is school-educated or home-educated and the child will suffer whatever it will suffer from that wherever they are educated. I would say there would only be a very, very tiny minority of dysfunctional families choosing to home-educate because that type of parent would welcome the relief of having their child in someone else's care for those hours the child was at school, particularly because of the mental health or whatever cause of their dysfunctionality is. The vast majority of home-educators are caring, decent people wanting the best for their children and have often suffered failures in the school system prior to home-educating.



This is not what home-education socialising is! See the quote I give below from the link http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1 ... 1950470304.



I think you mean being isolated can explain some of the symptoms. I also think you mean that being isolated can make the social aspect worse. And children that are ostracised or unpopular at school can feel just as isolated as a child that a parent isolates at home.



School can be a miserable place for a lot of children. Sitting quietly listening to a teacher, following rules and getting on with your work is not socialising. The short playtimes they have are often the source of cliquey behaviour, where a lot depends on whether you are popular, whether the childrens' parents get on with each other, whether you wear the 'right' clothes, and whether other children are in a good mood (which often they aren't as a lot of children don't like school). So those brief playtimes are not the wonderful socialising experiences that they are made out to be, even if they are potential opportunities, so many factors come into play that make the reality different from what would be ideal.

As the saying goes, you can choose your friends but you can't choose your family, well peers at school are not necessarily the same people that you would choose to be friends with either, you are just forced into the position of sharing air space with them.

Home-educating means you have flexibility and choice. Unfortunately if a minority of parents use that choice to deprive their children that's another matter. Most home-educating parents do not, they take their children to various activities to mix with other children, befriend children from other home-educating families, some still retain schoolfriends who they mix with after school hours, in holidays and at weekends.

A social worker in my local home-educating community who home-educates his own son, states firmly how in his job he sees schools failing many children all the time. How is it there are so many dysfunctional and anti-social (and I do mean anti-social not asocial) adults/children who went to/go to, school?

So, just to put this to bed:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1 ... 1950470304



This is why I said earlier up the thread, that there are myths about home-education and people should do some research before jumping to conclusions.

I'm really not bothered enough to read all of that :L.

I'm just about bothered enough to type this.