What causes Asperger's/autism?

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Anyhow, back to what causes autism.

Somewhere along the line of epigenesis comes a point, after birth - probably around two years of age, or less - when the circuitry that's handling visual processing starts to produce useful and reliable outputs. In the development of an NT mind, this turns out to be adjacent to the circuitry that's handling facial muscle developments. In the simple example, you see a smile, you produce a smile. There's a feedback loop here, because producing the right responses gives good feelings, and the wrong ones bad feelings.

In the autistic mind, things aren't so simple.

The NT mind matches facial expression recognition with facial expression production, and the phenomenon called theory of mind emerges on top of the pairing. Other people are fundamental to thinking in this world.

The autistic mind doesn't. There are a lot of different ways things can go from here, but that fundamental missing piece isn't easy to replace. After a few years, the chance for remediation is gone.

Although not completely regarding autistic spectrum disorders and somewhat meandering, I hope this adds to the thread.

I read an article on brain development which described how upon initial formation of the brain every neuron is interconnected and development consists of the brain selectively severing these connections due to needs and environmental factors. For instance, it seemed to describe a process where if the environment was one in which the brain was subjected to traumatic, emotionally painful stimuli, then the brain would cut the connections necessary for the stimuli - response in an effort to reduce trauma, thereafter leaving the brain more able to cope with the enviromental stress it faced, but less capable of emotional response.

I know a support worker for autistic spectrum disorder people, who told me that some of the most difficult cases he deals with are people who have had very traumatic and violent childhood experiences. Horrible example: person mutilated by parent with machete. I am not inferring that every autistic person had such a terrible childhood, but if they were predisposed( may be genetically, or some other factor) to sensitivity, seemingly innocuous events that others might shrug off could possibly affect them more.

When I was a child and my dad yelled at me, the noise would ring painfully in my brain and I would suffer visual distortion and confusion afterward - it really did feel like part of my brain had stopped working.

I recommend MIT OpenCourseWare website, they have extensive audio lectures(with pdf handouts) on psychology there, and many other subjects.