Is autism running in your family?

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What follows is taken from the NYT news service and touches a problem which has received scant attention until now. Someone, like Paul Collins has observed that in his family autism, in some form of the spectrum, runs abundantly.
As for my experience I am quite sure that both my parents were high functioning autistics. From what I have seen in the witnesses of the people posting here I am sure that perhaps a majority of people suffering of some form of autism have some other kin in the same condition. This is not merely to point to the hereditary nature of the condition, but also to a further dramatic problem: people who would need more attention, care, and, yes, affection, oftend have less of these commodities. It must be added that parents who are autistic have never been diagnosed correctly in their life, thus posing the foundations of vicious circles of incomprehension with their children.


"Researchers have long known that many psychiatric disorders and developmental problems run in families. Children born to parents with bipolar disorder, in which moods cycle between euphoria and depression, run about eight times the normal risk for developing a mood problem. Those born to parents with depression run three times the usual risk. Attention and developmental disorders like autism also have a genetic component.
As more youngsters than ever receive diagnoses of disorders -- the number has tripled since the early 1990s, to more than 6 million -- many parents have come to recognize that their own behavior is symptomatic of those disorders, sometimes in a major, but more commonly, in a minor way. In effect, the diagnosis may spread from the child to other family members, forcing each to confront family frustrations and idiosyncrasies that they might prefer to have left unacknowledged.
'It happens very frequently, with all sorts of disorders, from attention-deficit difficulties to mood problems like bipolar disorder," said Dr. Gregory Fritz, a child psychiatrist and academic director of Bradley Hospital in Providence, R.I., the nation's largest child-psychiatry hospital. "Sometimes it's a real surprise, because the child is the first one in the family ever to get a thorough evaluation and history. The parents are there, and they begin to see the pattern.'"

To my knowledge, my son is the first person in my family to have any form of autism. Neither I, nor my wife, have any relatives on the spectrum that we know of. What is interesting, however, is that many of us have 1 or 2 aspie-like traits, but the specific ones are different for each of us. I am basically a NT that stims and dislikes certain sounds, my wife is a NT that has an excellent memory and is unusually fond of routines, my mother in law is a NT that has trouble with social cognition and is incredibly orderly, etc. It feels as though my son simply inherited all of the aspie traits in the family and not the NT ones.

Yes, strongly. Grandfather we suspect had it, I'm sure my Dad is high-functioning, both my brothers are high-functioning, I have a couple of cousins with it... then there's me.

Autism doesn't run in my family - it strolls, taking its time, paying long visits to lots of us.

My dad and mom both have a couple traits, but it's not diagnosable, at least not in my mom. Mum's traits are only sensory and dad's are varied. He could maybe be diagnosed, but my traits are stronger than his. I have their traits + thirty others that I have no idea where they came from.

My grandfather is certainly not "normal," but he doesn't have AS. He could have medium functioning autism, I suppose.

My cousin has a couple traits, but I really don't know him, so I can't say.

I suspect my father had it. It is hard to tell because he was an alcoholic. But from the stories my mother told me about his childhood and his sober moments, it sounds like he was.

Then there are my kids, and I think my son has it, and I think my daughter has 'issues'.

Yes. More than an order of magnitude than in the general population. There are many of us - highly inheritable.

I think it runs in my family. I sure do. My father and unkle both have a few traits of Aspergers just like mine. The lack in social skills is pretty obvious. My unkle is my mother's brother, so it came to me from both of my parents.

Although I am the only one diagnosed, I think my dad is at least borderline and my mom's brother is most likely a full Aspie. (Yep, he's the "odd uncle" I keep reading about.) My mother used to be borderline OCD in my opinion, but she's mellowed a lot over the years. My dad functions quite well, but is deffinately different. Especially when you talk to him. And my uncle is just bad with people in general, and can't tolerate changes.
However, my sister is as normal as can be. Go figure.

My Mother is autistic, she was diagnosed when she was a small child, my biological Father is Schizophrenic, my kiddo is Autistic. It's only become apparent to me recently(probably about 5 months ago...I think.) that I may be on the spectrum as well(though much more mild) when I started dating my boyfriend who has AS and he pointed it out, then things started making sense. I hadn't ever thought about it before.
So if i were to look at my family and decide, I would say yes...it is running in my family.
Not one person in my family(extended included) do I think could be considered "normal."

My mother has traits, I have strong traits, our 2nd child( of 4 )has autism and MR..yes, I believe it runs in families........

It's hard to tell. My dad may have AS, he has some traits of it, but not nearly as much as I do.

Mine, too! My dad, my children, my brother, my dad's brother, his daughter, her son, my father's uncle, his mother and who knows how far back from there.

none of us suffer from autism. But many family members (myself, my son, my mom, probably my dad, definatly my grandpa, some members of my wife's family) are autistic.

I don't see a problem with it, in fact it makes getting a long with family so much easier for me than it is for most of my 1st generation autistic friends.

It very much runs in my mom's side of the family. I have an aunt with Medium-Functioning Autism, a great-aunt that me and my mom swears is an aspie, and there are a few other relatives on that side of the family with some mildly autistic tendencies. My mom's side of the family is also dominated by introverts.

I dont know if autism runs in my family, i was adopted but my half brother whom lives with me, has adhd, and has some autistic traits. When i have children, we'll see if i get nts or autistics, my nt bf doesn't care, but i know secretly hes wants nts haha.