Learned traits and external causes that mirror AS?

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I've thought long and hard about this with myself.
I fit the profile for higher-functioning AS pretty soundly.
I can keep a job and take care of daily stuff, but I experience sensory issues, and I am a wreck around other people. AS seems to comprehensively describe my difficulties.

However, I still wonder how much of it could be learned behavior, or the result of some other life events. As I think back, I see a number of things that could have caused some of the problems that I experience now.

For instance, my mother was a homebody and (needlessly) suspicious of the other people in our neighborhood. She generally kept me in the house and away from the other kids. She taught me a number of "rules" about socialization that I can see now were totally wrong. Her influence had the potential to create the stunted social animal that I am.

As a teenager and young adult, I drank and used drugs excessively. I still wonder what neurological and physiological effects that may have had. I seem to have memory, sensory, and processing problems that I don't think I had when I was younger.

I have 20 years of other examples of life experiences that seem to have the potential to have caused psychosomatic issues that look like AS. I'm trying to discern where these traits came from.

Could some of what we understand as AS actually be learned or externally caused?
Please share your thoughts on this question.

I would think that a true aspie can only modify the behaviours, via learned behavior, but it would always be something "unnatural" to them. Someone who had gotten to what appears to be the same place could have a wider latitude in what they can eventually do, believe, and feel. Sometimes speaking with a professional helps sort out which is which. Good luck.

No. Most definitely not.

My reactions to being thrust into social situations were not learned - my family was (and is) extremely socially active in their church - a behavior my younger sibling seems to have learned with ease and performs with gregarious dexterity. Anxiety and panic attacks were common for me even as a small child (my mother referred to this phenomenon as 'nervous stomach').

My parents had to force me to participate in sporting activities as a child, which I hated because, as in Little League Baseball, the ball hit me more than I hit the ball. Even with the advantage of a walked base, I never scored a run. My teachers had to force me to come down from the (stim) swingset to play with the other children, where I stood to the side and waited for the torture of recess to end.

When we moved to a larger city as I started High School, I (stim) paced up and down in the commons area, rather than enter the crowded cafeteria full of strangers and have lunch. This went on for two years. I certainly did not learn that kind of social avoidance at home.

On the other hand, of what limited social skills I have, the core of them were taught to me by my parents, probably because they could see that I wasn't picking them up naturally.

'Firm handshake when greeting - never hand a man a dead fish'

'Always look a man in they eye when you're talking to him'

'Say Hello and call people you know by name - ask how they're doing, even if you don't care'

Things like that, that never came naturally to me and still don't. And all that went on for 45 years before I ever heard the words Asperger Syndrome. So, while one or two AS-like traits might be learned in any specific (otherwise NT) individual, IMHO, they wouldn't amount to enough to qualify for diagnosis.

Hmmmm.....I really have to think about this.....I was always an odd child...but odd does not always automatically equal AS. I am the offspring of eccentric parents..and my mom seriously has a lot of AS traits..but those could somehow be the result of her own set of circumstances....Same goes for the traits that seem to exist on my dad's side of the family...

I believe that I suffered from PTSD when I was a child, and that caused me to sorta slip down a dark tunnel...but that sort of stuff is not "learned"

um...There were also a couple of head injuries...(not learned either....if they had any effect at all)

Possibly a case of "not taught" behaviors....that somehow mimic AS...or whatever autistic spectrum behavior it is that I seem to manifest...large parts of my childhood seemed stressful and depressed...parents possibly too stressed out to focus on teaching me the basic social skills..

Don't overestimate the influence parents can have on children. I was raised by a highly social and socially successful mother (my AS comes from my father's side of the family), who did everything she could to encourage me to be social, to engage in age-appropriate activities, and to grow up normally.

She failed miserably, though she hasn't given up despite my being 40+. Neurology trumps psychology, as one of my doctors told me. I can learn social norms and rules, but they are learned, not intuited.

I'm confident, based on the research to date, that AS is essentially a genetic condition, and though the experiences an individual has can influence the manifestations and evolution of AS, it's still AS.

To put this in different terms, say you are born with a great gift for music, painting, or math. You will use your gift almost regardless of your circumstances, though better circumstances will certainly help. Nature via nurture, in other words. Children diagnosed today with AS probably do better on average than people who were raised without proper diagnosis until adulthood. But it's still AS.

My parents had a mistrust of people also and moved house quite a lot. I think if you were raised by people with AS traits than it could amplify the condition somewhat. I don't want to blame my parents but wasn't till I moved into my own place that I was able to build relationships with people better.