If Asperger's is Genetic...

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http://hubpages.com/hub/If-Aspergers-Is ... -Card-Debt

I had a discussion with someone recently over whether or not Asperger's is something you can inherit through the genes. Rather than flood the chatroom with a heated debate I decided to write it all out in an article.

Tell me what you think.

I think that autism is more related to the level of testosterone in the mother's womb of the unborn child.

Another problem here is simple one. If Mum/Dad Aspie, then s/he will tech child to see world, at least partly, from Aspie point of view. Probably not play social games very much and be more focused on interests to a level NT parents would not. This runs through all areas of the child's social learning with his or her parent. To study this you would have to study children with traits of AS separated from parents at birth, separated twins etc. aslo are there any NT children adopted by AS parents - you would need this as a control to measure reverse effect of socialisation and developmental learning.Good question to ask are there studies like this?

Love the pattern the kid made in the image on blog. Says more than many words. Good pattern.

Last edited by memesplice on 15 Mar 2010, 10:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

I believe it is genetic. I'll use my family as an example...

LFA
female paternal cousin
male paternal cousin (they are not siblings)

Aspergers
paternal uncle
father
paternal grandfather
son1
son2
Myself
possibly my great grandfather

comorbids
cousin
sister
great grandmother
another uncle

I loved your article.

I am one of those who thinks that autism/asperger's is inherited. This is just based on my limited experience, and granted, I'm no doctor or psychiatrist -- but, I come from a father who would probably have been diagnosed -- my husband comes from a father who might have been diagnosed -- we have two sons, one is diagnosed, one is not -- and they all have TRAITS of asperger's. I love my father dearly, and he has been highly successful in life, but he has always had problems with socializing, so much so that it affected his employment opportunities (but being brilliant overcame some of the loss of opportunities) as well as his family life. He had three girls, none of whom are anywhere on the spectrum. BUT, we have two sons who are (well, at least one for sure).

It will be interesting to see what happens when my children begin having children.

I agree with this to some extent, but can see that it does seem to hold true in my family at least.

While I was raised by my mom (autism suspected by herself and me), I spent most of my time when younger at my aunt's house with my 3 NT cousins. If anything, I think it made me worse, because they were constantly picking on me and pointing out differences just to get me to "freak out" so they could laugh. My aunt, at the time, really didn't interfere with it much-I'm still not sure why, but it's probably because when I was a kid, it was VERY common for parents to say "oh, kids will be kids" type of thing.

My mom worked a full time job and went to college full time, so for a while I only saw her a few hours a day. I was in the public school system, typical daycares, all that jazz...

My son, I wondered for a while if he was influenced by me, but it's quite interesting... he is VERY different from me in many ways. For instance, he's moreso shy, doesn't really talk to people who talk to him. I, on the other hand, will go into full fledged random babbling about things I'm interested in and such if someone shows the slightest interest in what I'm saying... which is probably why not many will talk to me, lol. He just giggles and hides basically, even if someone we know is over and says "hi" to him or asks about how he's doing or any of that.

...and he wasn't really separated from me much at all growing up until he hit kindergarten.

He's been around my mom a lot, too, and she tends to seek people out to talk to. Well, I guess moreso to listen to her, lol... like in line she will just randomly start talking to the person in front of us, and when they walk away, she keeps going as if they are still standing there. My son and I both giggle at her, lol. It's not a bad thing she does it or anything, we just think it's funny because, well... it just looks funny to see her talking to someone's back. But we will do the same when others walk off-we just keep going. Our approach to actually talking to others though, is just so incredibly different between the 3 of us.

My grandmother showed a lot of signs as well... for instance, when my friends FIRST met her when I was in high school, she pulled out a photo album of a trip she took and had a pic of a naked guy at some mud springs. She showed it to all of them, made it a point, because she thought it was funny, and said "he didn't think I'd take the picture, so I did." All of my friends' faces turned red and they just gave it back to her very quickly. My mother and her do not get along one bit... they never really have, and hardly ever spent time together.

It's interesting though, how all of us have a lot of traits, my son and I both diagnosed... and our situations may be different, but we are all very different in ways as well regardless of the circumstances of home environment.

Absent a double-blind, and perhaps a twin study, it would be tremendously difficult to establish a definitive link. We haven't managed it with diversity in sexuality, why should we expect to find it within the autism spectrum.

I am very much like my father (which is why my mother and I get along so well). Is that genetic, or environmental? Well, naturally, it's both. Certainly genetics are resonsible for the basic wiring in my brain, but envionmental factors, like circumstances in utero, childhood developmental activity, childhood socialization (or more accurately, the lack thereof) have all contributed to the unique set of circumstances found in my brain and my personality.

Not every genetic condition is like haemophilia or colour-blindness, where there is a distinct genetic marker that can be traced in the genomes of one or both parents and found in the genome of the child. Some genetic conditions are far more complex, and might simply create potentials that are fulfilled, or not, as environmental factors contribute.

...and you are measuring primarily social responses, which can vary from culture to culture .

For example a child with the traits in a family say who live a busy social life, go to church, have open house, etc loads of people around all the time , an AS child would really stand out and have problems.

Take same child back in time place in Sparta probably no one would notice.

Also place same child in deeply traumatized community, say in Bosnia, many children would be withdrawn, not make eye contact due to events which happened there.

You are not measuring a universal constant like the shape of red blood cells, or the ability to produce a clotting agent.


This doesn't mean that genetic hard wiring is not involved, but it is very difficult to measure accurately its effects.

If you do not have conclusive proof of Pathology A causing Behavior B then it is difficult to form a pharmacological/behavioral model for treatment, and claim that whilst it helps it is actually as rigorous as a proven treatment for biological conditions which manifest as treatable symptoms.

i think it is genetic as i remeber my psychiatrist saying that if i were to have children (my husband and i are both aspies), it's likely that our children will be on the spectrum.

I am confused-as I'm not really sure who you are talking to, lol. I am only confused because I responded to you, so am unsure as to whether or not your next post was in response to mine

I was just basically saying, it's interesting that even though we all grew up in the same family, I was around NTs the majority of the time, but still had plenty of traits regardless, and my son was with me all of the time, but still wound up very different from me... so I don't think he just learned behaviors from me and is exhibiting them, since we are almost opposites about most things.

darn lag

Sorry Anxiety I was babbling out loud to the universal "you" we all talk to when doing this. Although I was thinking about what you had written at the time. Sorry special interest mode got the better of me, and I didn't intend any rudeness.

The point with reference to you own experience is that some underlying causes may be hereditary
others may be long standing patterns of behavior which have been learned.

The further problem here is when you get into the really hard science of the mind, the argument goes that everything is a product of biologically based processes, irrespective of the social environment. We default, flexibly, leaping like packets of energy, selecting from one set of innate behaviors to deal with the social surroundings. Like a chess supercomputer, making the best moves from a choice of billions.-Our experience consciousness and awareness is the product of biochemical processes, nothing more. The social environment is an "illusion" generated by the biological process and a convenient way for sentient life to reference itself and others- and one day hard science will demonstrate this , or not.

However, those from arguing this particular approach do not have an adequate model to demonstrate their point. Even if this is some kind of ultimate demonstrable plain fact of life until they do, we still need a more "woolly" social model to explain the gaps they haven't been able to fill. Just as hard science began to fill the gaps in religion, it wants to fill the gaps in the social learning models.

Of course they will find it very hard to understand "understanding" because it is not something that is easily approachable with direct reason. Meaning seems to hide itself when you "ask" social meaning what it actually is. This causes meltdown at a very high theoretical level. You need something like a quantum physics of the mind to make the next move. And they don't have that yet.

Actually we can be quite confident that ASDs are genetic or inherited rather than learned as a result of the high concordance rate of identical twins, which differs from the lower but still high concordance rate of non-identical twins and siblings.

The notion that ASDs occur as a result of someone being taught to have it by their parents is trite and counter-evidential.
Are the people who want us to think ASDs taught/learned behaviours the same ones who want to flog expensive ABA?

I see some things in your blog entry that I disagree with.

1)You seem to be arguing that if people say "autism is genetic", they are agreeing that it is a bad thing, a disorder. They are not. Arguing that it is genetic carries no judgement about whether it is good or bad.

2)You actually do argue that if a child has behaviour traits that are similar to one of their parent's behaviour traits, it must have been learned and not be genetic. This is not true. Behaviours are influenced by a combination of genetics and enviroment. Children are not blank slates, ready to be inscribed with the behaviours they see around them.

3)At the end of the blog post you say, "Similarly, the people who want you to think Aspergers is genetic are the same people who want you to pay for all those new 'treatments' and 'miracle drugs' that help 'cure' Aspergers." Shame on you for writing something so unbelievably wrong after actually spending enough time on Wronplanet to have gotten a quote from one of its members about being genetic.

You then go on to say, "So if you need to believe that you inherited it from your parents to make you feel better, that's fine. But don't expect this theory to gain momentum with people who truly don't believe there is anything wrong with them." Say what???! !!???? How does believing you inherited something from your parents equate to thinking there is something wrong with you? Spend some more time here and you will see that an enormous number of posters believe both that it is genetic and that there is nothing wrong with them. These beliefs are not mutually exclusive. I don't know why you think they are.

I didn't know you were married.

I think it's genetic. Traits run in my family and I have seen enough people saying their siblings have it or their parents or grandparents, or relatives.