Is autism genetic or what?

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Is it genetic? I heard it could be but it also has to do with the environment. But what about the kids who were born fine, then all of a sudden become autistic? or is injections of certian medicine could be the cause? I always wondered that. I wouldn't know if it was genetics, but by my area, they say our water and environment has to do with it. I dont know, whats your opinion on it?

It is definitely genetic.
Some forms of autism only show the first symptoms when the kid gets older (usually between month 18 and 3 years), but that doesn't mean the kid was born without Autism... Kids with autistic parents are very likely to be autistic too.
I'm not sure if water and environment can worsen the symptoms, but there's nothing that's proven to "cause" autism except the genes.

Yea I thought it is genetics also, but I talked to a couple of families who has autistic kids and have no sign of autism run the family at all. I also know autistic adults having normal children. One autistic mother told me she had 4 NT children then one of her NT children ended up having an autistic child. So I don't know, I met this one lady who ended up have 3 autistic children, and her and her husband were both NTs, explained to me that they never even heard of autism, and nobody else had any thing of sort or traits of autism either. So thats why I'm confused and puzzled.

My parents aren't on the spectrum either, but through family gossip I found out my great-grandmother's sister was "weird" and didn't talk to anyone... So I guess it was somewhere in the family after all.
Most likely, in your example, it was something similar. But it might be hard to find out that sort of thing because the official diagnosis "autism" simply doesn't exist for so long. Some great-great-great-grandfather might have been autistic, but nobody would have diagnosed it.
Of course that doesn't mean autistic adults can't have NT children. I heard the chance is about 50%. It's just more likely the child will be on the spectrum than if the parents were NT.
Genetics are difficult.

I believe it is genetic to some extent. Autism exists on my mom's side of the family as well as my dad's side. I think the Autistic spectrum is genentic but it hits with different degrees of severity. Like my cousin is a lot worse than I am and my dad and sister just have ADHD.

Of course, no two persons are the same... Nobody said that, right?
And don't forget that even people who are considered NT can show SOME traits of the autistic spectrum. It's just that 'label' they put on people. You 'count' the symptoms, if there are enough of them, the person is considered to be on the spectrum, if not, the person is considered NT. There's no definite border between the extremes.
For example, my father... Yesterday, he started screaming because he couldn't have one of his favorite teacups (the blue ones) and had to use a white one which is identical except for the color... You'd exspect that sort of behaviour from an Autie, right? But he's definitely NT - he doesn't show ANY other symptoms of the spectrum...

It's 100% genetic.
I'm 99% sure my dad is autistic too.
He's quiet, he's really intelligent but at first sight; you'd think he's a bit 'simple'.
He's very into himself and i have basicly taken over his routine; come home, sit at computer and be a bit pissed when anyone requires social contact.

everything has a genetic and environmental component... for autism, i would say the genetic factor has more influence

Just because something is 100% genetic does not mean your parents or grand parents had to have the condition. The bulk of the genes associated with autism may infact make a person mostly NT and one or a few extra may make you very autistic.

Awwwwww... I just saw that my dad made a list of every teacup in the house and developed a dishwasher plan for them... Isn't that cute?
Autie genes...

It can be really hard to tell... do we know whether autistic genes can lie dormant for a few generations between expression? Or how they express differently in combination with other genes? Asperger's doesn't even act the same way between males and females, apparently.

I'm the first person in my family to ever be diagnosed on the spectrum, so the Grimblings could fit into that example that Age1600 mentioned. But we also have a long history of interesting behavour, and it could equally be that we've had Aspies in the family for generations, but it wasn't picked up til now.

My Mom and Sister both definitly part of the AS family. My mom is worse than my sister but I got hit with the blunt of it. I also know there is a long line of crazy on my mom's side. (my grandma killed herself when my mom was only 16) I've been talking to her a lot about AS lately. At first I thought she was just saying she understood and I didn't believe she really did. As these things go, I started piecing together stories and things she told me over the years and it's apparent that she is very much like me beyond the absentmindedness and what not. She too found a way to cope with it growing up and did a great job of teaching me. Now shes all about new age spirituality. Readings, Rekie, Tarot, the works and happens to be the greatest mother ever!

Last edited by TylerPaul on 14 May 2007, 5:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Most research indicates that it does indeed behave much like most other genetic abnormalities in that it can lie dormant and the severity of its expression can be strongly influenced by how far into the spectrum the parents are.

Meaning two people with autistic traits are much more likely to produce a child who functions more deeply in the spectrum than they do and conversely if one parent strongly expresses the trait and the other leans towards the other extreme the child is likely to end up more or less NT and the trait goes dormant until a roll of the genetic dice or someone entering the family who expresses the gene comes and wakes it back up.

An autistic kid from a family with no history of it could also be a new mutation (a "sport"). A genetic condition doesn't have to run in your family for you to get it.

True but thats incredibly rare unless a previous mutation had made the expression more or less permanently dormant and a new mutation reverted it to an active state.

Especially in a condition such as autism where multiple abnormal genes are involved the odds of all of the necessary genes being altered at the same time are astronomical.

probably both