Chances of Having a Child With Low-Functioning ASD

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I’ve been thinking about whether I want to have biological kids in the future (I’m only 19 so it would be far in the future), and I’ve realized that since there is a very long history of mental illness and neurodevelopmental disorders in my family, I don’t want to pass that down to biological kids. Putting the mental illness aspect aside (just so I can ask this hypothetical question), I know that if I had a kid with high-functioning or even moderate-functioning autism, that would be something I could work around and the kid probably wouldn’t feel like they were suffering from autism (many people on the spectrum who are higher-functioning, including myself (for the most part), don’t wish they were NT and feel that autism is a part of them), but if the kid was low-functioning, they would be severely disabled and feel like they were suffering (from what I understand about low-functioning autistic people, they usually wish they didn’t have autism), and I wouldn’t want to increase that chance of happening to a kid by having my own biological children. So I guess this is a long-winded way of asking, what are the chances of a high-functioning Aspie with a long family history of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders having a low-functioning kid, especially if the other parent was also high-functioning autistic? Are the chances significantly elevated? DISCLAIMER: I am not saying that I wouldn't want a low-functioning kid because they are disabled. I wouldn’t want a low-functioning kid because I wouldn’t want them to suffer.

This is a good question but I don't think you will get a good answer here. For one thing they keep changing the definition of what is autism. A few years ago those with Asperger's were separated from the Autism definition, now they are included. In my opinion there is little difference between high functioning autistic and an Aspie.

So anyway I will give you my impression. First off I suspect the rate of Aspies in the population is about 1 in 40. Some of the latest research points in that direction. I am 70 year old and I believe from personal observation that the rate at that time was about the same.

The definition of HFA in Wikipedia is:
High-functioning autism (HFA) is a term applied to people with autism who are deemed to be cognitively "higher functioning" (with an IQ of 70 or greater) than other people with autism. Individuals with HFA or Asperger syndrome may exhibit deficits in areas of communication, emotion recognition and expression, and social interaction. HFA is not a recognized diagnosis in the DSM-5 or the ICD-10. The amount of overlap between HFA and Asperger syndrome is disputed.

The question was asked on Quora and several answers were provided. One of the answers provided was by
Tomáš Ajdari from the Czech Republic. He wrote "HFA is FSIQ over 70 and the ASD population seems to average 100 /SD 15/ so 87–98 % by your definition or 29 out of 30 autistics are high functioning (label) though only maybe 2/3 of that function well in the real world." Source: What percentage of people with ASD are high functioning? It is listed under "Answers that need improvement".

Perhaps the more interesting question is "Can a low functioning or medium (moderately) functioning autistic become a high functioning autistic." I think the answer is yes but the key is how to teach them. I suspect there are three types of Aspies which are visual thinkers (like Temple Grandin), pattern thinkers, and video thinkers. Many visual thinkers and video thinkers have a very rough road to follow to become high functioning. I suspect many will fall under the label of low functioning and medium functioning. This is because many are non-verbal and it is a difficult transition to become verbal. The worst off are the the video thinkers. Jason Lu, a member on Wrong Planet, wrote a book on the method he used to move his visual thinker daughter and video thinker son into becoming high functioning autistics. The name of his book is "Eikona Bridge". So if you are really serious about the possibility of someday becoming a parent and this is one of your concerns, I would recommend that you buy a copy and set it aside as an insurance policy should such an eventuality ever arise.

I thought a little bit about what Tomáš Ajdari wrote on Quora. He is looking at the question from a purely mathematical basis.

There are probably a few assumptions here
1. The distribution of IQ across the autistic spectrum is a normal distribution.
2. The mean IQ of autistics across the spectrum is 100

An IQ test score is calculated based on a norm group with an average score of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. The standard deviation is a measure of spread, in this case of IQ scores. ... In other words, 68% of the norm group has a score within one standard deviation of the average (100).

High-functioning autism (HFA) is a term applied to people with autism who are deemed to be cognitively "higher functioning" (with an IQ of 70 or greater) than other people with autism. Therefore by this definition if you are autistic and have an IQ of 70 or less, you are not HFA but rather LFA or MFA.

Then you plug in the numbers in a normal distribution calculator such as
Areas under Normal Distribution

Enter
Mean = 100
SD = 15
Click on the "Below" box and enter "70" (which is the definition of LFA and MFA combined.)

Then click on "Recalculate"
That gives an answer of 0.0228
which means that 2.28 percent of the population of Autistics are LFA or MFA and 97.72 percent are HFA.

But that is based on the above assumptions being true.

Interesting statistics, thanks for providing them. I don't think they're 100% accurate though, as autism and intellectual disability are often comorbid and there are plenty of MFA and LFA persons who have an IQ of 70 or greater, it's the level of disability their autism causes that determines if they are MFA or LFA (or if we're going by the DSM-5, requiring substantial support or very substantial support).

I'm not sure what is worse; having a child with more severe autism where they're more likely to be a burden on you even as adults, or a child with mild autism where they are self-aware enough to crave an NT life but struggle with achieving this and then suffer with depression and high anxiety because of it. I think it's best to have that is not self-aware enough to be affected by what they're missing out on, but is autistic enough to be happy alone and is rather intelligent and has good focus and spends a lot of time on a special interest, and doesn't have violent meltdowns.

Low functioning people are not burdens or anything like that, and are still worthy of life and respect.
The answer to your question is it depends on your family history. If most of you are level one, than that is what runs in your family, and low functioning would only come from spontaneous mutation.

But low functioning people have many views on autism, like the rest of us, and often the level 3 label means autism with significant comorbids.

Please, everyone remember, aspies aren't better than level 3 autistic people.

I know this isn't the question you asked, but possibly a more relevant question is whether someone with autism from a family that has a lot of mental illness and neurodevelopmental disorder history is capable of being a good parent. You were asking about the probability of a biologically transmitted disorder. I am answering from an environmentally oriented perspective.

I don't have a pat answer for you, but if you are considering having a biological child versus an adoptive child versus no child at all, you darn well better at least ask it, yourself. Some people don't have the temperament to parent effectively; and then, no matter what genes the child has, parents like that are almost certain to have problems in their offspring.

@BeaArthur - that's a good thing to consider. Part of the reason I am wary about having kids and am trying to be very careful about considering it is that I don't know if I would make a good parent, especially if that's something that requires good social skills. There's also the question of being mentally stable, as I do have a lot of comorbid mental illness.