Aspie tendencies in extended family

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There is an interesting article written by Roger N. Meyer.

Talking with Us - AS Parents and Other Family Members in Denial

He's a social worker who works heavily in the spectrum community AND he has aspergers which makes his writing and involvement unique in perspective compared to the majority of writing out there.

The article talks about both Leo Kanner's original observations of behavioural traits in the families of his patients back in 1943 - he stressed there was both environmental and genetic co-relation. And it discusses how our community as medical institution denies and ignores any familiar participation and refuses to acknowledge any such connections. Connections which are obvious to most who are diagnosed and a hand full of doctors who are willing to step forward.

An interesting read for anyone looking into familiar phenotypes.

Also, he links to Leo Kanner's original report. If you follow the link the primary articles by Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger themselves back in the 1940s are available and very interesting sources.

On my fathers side I have two uncles who could easily be HFA. A few cousins that have Aspie traits.
The only confirmed in the family is me (Aspie) and my son (PDD-NOS)
Funny side note, language delay is very common in both sides of my family. My mother said that I was the only one that spoke early.

Sub-clinical Aspie traits all over the place on my dad's side. Lots of psychiatric issues all over the place on my mom's side. I am diagnosed AS, and I strongly suspect that a) my brother is AS also, and b) that's why he constantly self-medicates with alcohol unless he is either working or driving. I wish he would go see someone about a diagnosis; perhaps that would help him to find ways to cope that are not so self-destructive (yeah, like I, a self-mutilator, have room to talk, but oh well).

I think some of the male relatives on my dad's side may be on the spectrum. I am the only one with a diagnosis, though.

I wonder if a person having PTSD when they produce a child could cause that child to develop certain particular traits.

My father had strong autistic traits, but was far too socially manipulative to have had fullblown AS. He is likely to have had narcissistic personality disorder. My brother is dyslexic, and on my mothers side there are many known or suspected of being affected. My grandfather may have had dyslexia and had some motor coordination difficulties which affected some of his motor functions. For example, he was a champion boxer in his youth but had difficulty casting a fishing fly without sending it through the sound barrier. One of my great uncles had fairly poor social skills and an obsessive interest in recording every last penny he managed to save and how (saved 3p, turned the hall light off etc). There are many other examples. Amongst my living relatives on that side of the family, At least one of my uncles has ADD or something like it and I have an aunt who has shown bizarre self centred behaviour all her life, but whether she's on the spectrum or is just a plain nutjob is open to debate. The ADD uncle produced 2 kids, both appear normal but have produced kids on the spectrum. The daughter has a son whose been diagnosed with a different condition by every psychiatrist he's seen (ADD, AS, PDDNOS). The son has 4 kids, 2 are normal, one is a girl diagnosed AS and the other is a boy just shy of 3 whose recently been diagnosed with classic autism. He has started to speak, however, so that diagnosis may change with time. In the wider family I've been told there is a woman who looks very like me, is astonishingly good at art and may have AS traits similar to mine.

yes--AS traits on both sides of the family, and NLD also. (unfortunately, everyone is undiagnosed and closeted. it's difficult to talk about the subject.)

high rate of engineers, techies, "eccentric poet/artists," etc. skills tend to be a little skewed in one direction or another. (lots of strengths, but they tend to come with those deficits too--ex., difficulty with social skills, no sense of direction/spatial relationships, coordination problems, so on.) i think the lack of diagnosis--self or otherwise--- has really taken its toll. i have an uncle who formerly worked in the space program and now is slowly drinking himself to death. one of my cousins is completely drifting---despite gifts---and i'm drifting also. i think it may have to do with untreated depression/anxiety, etc. (and on my part, also lack of executive function.)

i've also noticed that many of us are stunningly accident prone. strange, since no one has much of a sense of danger, i've noticed.

I like to say that cold yet civilised behaviour is a family specialty. My mother's family are entirely NT, but my father, one of my uncles, and one of my cousins all show traits. My cousin is particularly interesting, because she also has impaired hearing and her odd or antisocial behavious have always been blamed on that ("she doesn't answer because she can't hear you").