what do u think CAUSES autism

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OMG

(epi)genetics & conditions in last trimester/birth

or being abducted by Awiens during that time

The cat to the right looks like Eloa's avatar cat.

I believe autism can be ignited, in a person with a predisposition, by the environment---but I don't believe the environment is, usually, the primary cause.

I sometimes wonder if my extremely stressful pregnancy triggered autism in my son.

Or did the autism, somehow, cause the extremely stressful pregnancy?

Which I tend to doubt, by the way.

When I was born, in 1961, mothers used to smoke like chimneys during pregnancy.

The big Surgeon General's report on smoking didn't come out until 1964.

I wouldn't be surprised if cigarette smoke caused at least some of my problems.

Same here. Mom used to smoke, drink, do drugs and was pregnant/gave birth during an extremely traumatic time (war). So....

I was pretty sick my entire pregnancy. I gained very little weight while pregnant. I also had a lot of emotional stress. Fun times. It's probably a wonder my son was as healthy as he was.

When you see how beautiful and angelic your child is (after being cleaned LOL), you wonder how this innocent bundle of joy could have caused all that stress and pain for all those months!

Yep. It was all worth it.

We know that environmental stressors can lower IQ levels in infants and that it can cause problems later in life with emotional challenges like depression.

My opinion is that environmental stressors make autism more noticeable by stripping away some of the factors that make it easier to cope, but that they do not cause the autism in itself.

We all know that people with high IQs are more able to "pass" than those who have lower than average IQs.

For example, we know that being raised around farms that use pestisides lowers IQ. So the autistic kids who were raised on those farms would be more likely to be identified than those raised in the alps somewhere, where the air is crystal clear. Because statistically, they wouldn't have the same IQ boost as those raised without pesticide exposure. But they won't be more likely to be autistic, just to need more help with the autism.

In identical twins with identical genomes, the chances of autism for another twin is 70-90%, and even without it, the other twin will display learning disabilities, anxiey, motor function problems, etc. The genes do have to be there, but the epigenome is also important to take into account. If they hypothetically found the genes in an individual and replaced them with a normal variant that wouldn't respond to the current epigenome set up in a person, then that may cause changes, or finding a way to modify the gene expression would do it. I don't know which one is easier to crack though.

Lead paint vaccinations.

I know twins like that. Steve and Stan. Steve is in my class. Stan is in regular school and doesn't have any kind of autism or learning disabilities that I know of.

It can be either way.

Many times, though, one twin, say, might have severe Kanner Autism, while the other has Aspergian/HFA-type traits.

(Hug)
I don't think is as black-and-white. I had the perfect pregnancy, did everything right to a T, but some stuff did go wrong at birth... Still kiddo was and still is my bundle of joy
(didn't know anything about ADS nor ADHD besides my family being extremely f****d up, probably undiagnosed)

No one knows what causes autism yet , but I agree with the scientists who think that bacteria in the human gut might cause it. I have come across studies about how those microorganisms can affect weight and depression. Idk nothing else seems as promising.