TheDoctor82 wrote:
My girlfriend posed this question to me- I'm already under the belief that she's on the same page with me, and thinks that I'm the one for her( yes, I think she's the one for me, too).
So, can it be passed down genetically?
there is plenty of evidence that genetics is the primary "source" of AS - just check
other postings here or any reliable sources on autism/as.
if you are worried about passing these characteristics along to your own children,
well - maybe you shouldn't. it can be a good thing.
personally, i see plenty of aspie characteristics in both my mother's and father's
families - altho it is not clear if any of them had enough of the required assemblage
of characteristics to meet a clinical diagnosis.
grandfather with a degree in electrical engineering in 1910, inventor, bizarre ability
to interact with wild animals (photos of him out in the woods petting wild deer, with
cardinals sitting on his head, etc.), great grandmother was nearly mute and so intense
she frightened everybody, lived in a huge old house full of thousands of different plants
inside & out which she used as medicines (she would have been a witch in earlier days),
and so on.
thank god people like this exist and, if they are the genetic source of my AS characteristics,
that is a good thing.
my wife, who is absolutely NT, was largely attracted to me because of my AS characteristics
even though many of them drive her nuts (as some of her NT characteristics drive me nuts).
i am now seeing some of my characteristics in my 7 year old - but in combination with
my wife's very NT characteristics. it makes him really unique - absolutely naive, hyper
emotional, intuitively phenomenal math skills with poor fine motor skills (his writing is
crap), hyper social, erratic performance in school (either way ahead or way behind),
odd array of sensory issues. i would say that people find him to be really interesting
and puzzling because of this juxtaposed collection of characteristics. we can cope with
any "issues" because we understand their source. They are not problems, they make
him an unusual and interesting person.
there are AS folks with very disabling characteristics and i can see that some people
would be afraid of passing these along to their children. i often wonder if the disability
has more to do with the context (parents, schools, society) than anything. in an
understanding and supportive environment these "disabilities" are, at worst, differences,
and at best characteristics that make a unique and interesting individual.
so yeah for genetics.
fg