Causes of autism

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What causes autism? I think the theory that it is only caused by genetics is BS. Maybe that is true in some cases, but I have a hard time believing that it is caused solely by genetics. I'm the only autistic in my family. I even had a conversation with my mom about this and she doesn't know of anyone else in our family who could even possibly have autism. What's your input on this?

I think it is genes in 90% of the cases. I believe that it's a throwback to a long, long time ago in many cases. No one in my family diagnosed autistic, however, there doesn't seem to be a lot of extremely neurotypical people either. I respect your opinion though.

Last edited by ocdgirl123 on 28 Oct 2010, 12:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

Everyone in my family is NT.

I haven't looked much into the genetic side of autism so I'm not sure what the current theories are. But it is possible to have relatives who don't have a disorder, but are carriers of the gene that causes it. If the autism gene is "recessive", you need two copies of it to have the disorder. Your mum might have one but not the other, same with your dad, and you have received one from each of them (there's a 25% chance of this happening), so you have two.

But I don't even know if anyone has suggested there is a recessive autism gene, so this could be entirely irrelevant in the case of autism.

*waits for genetic expert to clarify*

I don't think that there is only one gene that controls autism.

I've also heard of "autism" being acquired in institutional settings. I don't know anything about that but that doesn't seem to be the case for you either.

I have no idea. Would probably say genetics, though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasty_generalization

Sample of one does not a conclusion make.

My aunt, my uncle, my sister, and one first cousin, all on dad's side. None on mother's side.

AS runs in families. That is plain as day if you look at a large sample size.

If you want more evidence, there's the sillicon valley phenomenon. Lots of AS types work there as computer engineers (geeks) and so there's a much higher number of autistic kids being born there.

My mouthful of amalgam (~3% mercury) fillings.

(Really though, it's genetic.)

Some studies suggest that social impairments, communication impairments and repetitive behaviours in autism are largely independent and created by different genes; then, it is relativly easy someone being the only autistic in the family - imagine that you inherit the social problems from your mother and the restricted interests from your father.

In my case, I have a lot of testosterone on my brain for a woman, that's why almost every person or character that I've identified since the start of my time here, have been of the male gender. I've never felt female. Even as a small child of 2 or 3.

NTs can have Aspies because they can still carry autism genes.

There have been a lot of BS theories like milk causing autism, water causing autism, mobile phones causing autism, kittens causing autism, autism causing autism... But genetics is the only theory with actual scientific evidence.

No, not the kittens! D:




Yup. Yaaaaaaay science!

You forgot "vaccine causing autism".
Genetics is the answer of autism but there is still need to understand why.

Genetics is not that simple... If you have a gene for something, that doesn't mean anything at all. It can be recessive, which means that the other gene must have the same allel to result in any effect. Genes can turn each other on and off, even influences from the environment can turn genes on and off (but I only heard about that in the context of smoking and obesity).

And if, as recent researches regarding autism suggest, aspergers is the result of many genes, that makes that even more complicated... some might by dominant, some recessive, some might only result in an effect if turned on by another gene...
And then there's the possibility of mutations...

As long as the very vast majority with austism/aspergers has it also in their family, the cases of aspergers born in NT families will not disprove the genetic cause.

I think the environment has a little to do with it. Look at Silicon Valley - that area was mostly farmland and in the 1950s-1990s some manufacturing, mostly silicon fabs. And of course they used nasty chemicals as well, the farms being showered in organochlorine/organophosphate insecticides and the silicon fabs used massive amounts of chlorinated solvents, lead, mercury, isopropyl alcohol, and other nasty chemicals. And Silicon Valley has one of the highest autistic populations.