Does anyone else get the feeling...

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...that "autism", as the word is employed today, is largely a politically correct label?

If child abuse can result in underdeveloped white matter, and Asperger's essentially represents a white matter/right hemisphere symptomatology...does anyone seriously doubt that the behaviors that make up the syndrome of "autism" can occasionally be the result of a pathological childhood?

For the record, I do believe that autism is, in most cases, mostly a matter of genetic inheritance. And I think Bettelheim, et al. obviously overestimated the role that minor parenting issues might play in the development of such a serious condition. But looking at the characteristics of Asperger's and understanding its neural underpinnings, one who claims that autism simply cannot be the product of a pathological childhood either a) is overly credulous, or b) has a political agenda.

Now, I'm not saying it's a bad agenda, necessarily. For one, I don't see much point in guessing (or trying to ascertain from a more scientific point of view) how much pathological parenting might have played into any given child's condition. And even if doing so were practical, what use is it to say to a parent, "You did this"? What good can come of it? You'll note that children are only diagnosed with things like Reactive Attachment Disorder when they're brought in by someone other than their parents. If mom and dad had brought those RAD kids in, do you seriously doubt that many of them would've received a diagnosis of Asperger's?

One last thing...people like to differentiate between Asperger's (which is prized as a "neutral" diagnosis--neutral in terms of whether or not certain traits are though to embody "badness") and conditions like RAD, BPD, NPD, etc. by picking out this or that "badness" trait (like violence, lack of conscience, lying, etc.) and saying, "That's not Asperger's. Asperger's just means trouble socializing and restricted interests. Anything beyond that has to be something else--perhaps BPD." Note that, in this case, we have no problem tossing the whole of the person's behavioral condition into the bucket of BPD, but when it comes to suggesting that Asperger's (or ADD, or whatever) might be an integral foundation on which this violence/lying/etc. has been erected, all of a sudden we're dealing with discrete, self-contained conditions that have nothing to do with each other and occur in the same individual only coincidentally. In other words, autism never means "bad", only "different". "Badness" is supposed to lie solely in the realm of other diagnoses that, surprise surprise, have absolutely nothing to do with Asperger's.

I mean...come on.

I do believe that childhood and other aspects can have a significant influence on the development of autistic traits.

For me personally, I had a very rough youth. I won't go into detail here, but I have developed numerous character traits which are a direct result of my home situation. Mostly the social aspects. Being guarded. Incapable of forming any kind of meaningful deep relation to anyone. Not showing emotions, etc.

My incapacity to read body language and not staring people in the eyes during a talk comes from my congenital glaucoma. I have extremely poor eyesight I have had this since birth and it has forced me to compensate. Change my behaviour towards people in order to have a conversation.

I am pretty certain that much of the above accounts for most of my 'issues' today and is responsible for me now being called 'autistic'. I have told all this to the people who diagnosed me, but I did not get the impression that they cared for much of this.Their focus was much more on practical tests you get during autism diagnosis sessions. I might be wrong though.

Whether I was born with autistic traits and my youth just amplified it all, or it all developed during my childhood, I am not sure and I will probably never know. But I am sure that environmental conditions should certainly not be overlooked.

Stories of child abuse run rampant on this site. I wonder, without the child abuse, how many members would be considered sub-clinical or simply not autistic? Certainly not all of them, maybe not even most...but many, I'd imagine.

Well, sure. An autistic neonate doesn't return the right psychosocial signals, and that can trigger the wrong responses, and ...

It all flows on from there. It's not autism that's shameful it's ignorance!! !!

I often wonder how much of my autistic traits may be attributed to a relatively good bringing up and fortunate circumstances and how much of it is a result of my genes. I'm sure all the three contributed to my state throughout my life from infancy to adulthood. Life began for me having a twin sister to whom I could always connect, so I wasn't really that alone most of the time than I would have been without her. Our mother is a teacher herself, and she was always near or at least not far from me to help if I misbehaved at school, which I did a lot anyway, especially at 2nd grade. Without it I would have gone through much harder periods, I'm sure.

As for 'autism' not being 'bad' and 'badness' comes from other mental disorders or illnesses that are at least partly the result of autistic traits, I think it has some truth in it, but it oversimplifies things at the same time. I would venture to say that maybe other specific disorders that you mention might have more to do with the environment in which a child was brought up than autism.