spectrum moms vs. spectrum dads...and kids...

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whatamess
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10 Apr 2008, 8:44 am

Just from my family, it seems that those who are on the spectrum (many undiagnosed and will not admit it) and genetically received "the genes" for AS/HFA from the dad, are rather high functioning, good speach, etc...those who received it from the mother's genes seem to be more low functioning, such as speech delays, etc...

If you have kids, did they get the genes from mom or dad? Are they speech delayed? Any other members of the family on the spectrum that you can definitely see that there might be a pattern?



KingdomOfRats
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10 Apr 2008, 11:16 am

whatamess wrote:
Just from my family, it seems that those who are on the spectrum (many undiagnosed and will not admit it) and genetically received "the genes" for AS/HFA from the dad, are rather high functioning, good speach, etc...those who received it from the mother's genes seem to be more low functioning, such as speech delays, etc...

If you have kids, did they get the genes from mom or dad? Are they speech delayed? Any other members of the family on the spectrum that you can definitely see that there might be a pattern?

Am have 'LFA',it comes from dads side as he has undiagnosed hf asd of some sort [doesn't want to get assessed as got to his sixties without it],sister is undiagnosed on the spectrum [hf],his brother [who is NT] also has a autie child,both dad and his brother have another brother who is classic aspie,so it's from the male side,though mum has always suspected it being from hers-she thinks her sister has aspergers,and her son has aspergers,there's been quite a lot of developmental/learning disability stuff on her side.there seems to be other shared around brain stuff going on on mums side-all of her sisters including her had or still have alcoholism and most have had depression.


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DevonB
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10 Apr 2008, 11:18 am

My Dad's undiagnosed...I'm high functioning and a woman, my son is obviously from me, and high functioning so far...he's eight. So...I don't know about any pattern there.



WalnutWhip
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10 Apr 2008, 9:28 pm

I think I get it from my dad, but am not sure as he died when I was only young but from what people say about him he was very very odd. My sons (and maybe my daughter, she is undiagnosed at this stage) get their Aspergers, HFA, ADHD ADD and 'giftedness' from me, and you wouldn't believe how guilty and heartbroken it makes me feel to know I have passed this curse on to them. :(



Last edited by WalnutWhip on 10 Apr 2008, 11:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Jennyfoo
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10 Apr 2008, 9:49 pm

I'm about 99.9% sure that I got it from my dad. At least 2 of my 5 siblings are also on the spectrum.

I had no speech delays. Only my younger brother had speech delays out of all 6 kids.

My husband is also AS and our 9 y/o daughter has an HFA diagnosis. She did not have speech delays, but rarely spoke. She was talking in sentences long before
"normal" for her age, but she never did say much, and only to us.

She got AS genes from both of us, so I guess that doesn't help. LOL!



AspieMamaof4
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11 Apr 2008, 7:08 am

I know nothing about my father or his side of the family. I do know however that I have a cousin with undiagnosed AS, and a grandfather with AS. Which would mean mine most likely came from the maternal side. I am high functioning I guess. Though there are days I question that.

My 9 yo daughter has strong AS traits. No dx. Tests gifted in reading and math.

My husband was diagnosed with childhood schizophrenia which he doesn't have. Instead he is AS. Our 4 yo is diagnosed with AS, our 2 yo and 4 month old are NT so far.



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05 Feb 2016, 10:00 am

My father gave it to me, Because my mother is a psychopath.


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rude1
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05 Feb 2016, 1:07 pm

Autism is only a tragedy because society hasn't learnt to accept it. They need to be cured, not the person. I would love to have a child but I'm waiting awhile to see if the world around me gets fixed yet.


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Tawaki
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05 Feb 2016, 1:34 pm

For grins and giggles....

My husband's mom has ASD.

My husband is diagnosed.
His sister probably has it, but never had kids. (Is married)
His other brother's son has it. But neither the mother or father has ASD. No hint of it at all.



Ettina
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05 Feb 2016, 2:33 pm

My Dad's undiagnosed autistic, and my Mom is probably NVLD (with no social issues, just spatial & math issues). I'm HFA.

I doubt there's a link in most forms of polygenetic autism (which is what I have - I checked a bunch of the SNPs for this kind on 23andme). However, some forms of single-gene autism are affected by the sex of the child or the parent.

In terms of sex of the child, Fragile X Syndrome (which can cause autism in a subset of those affected) is usually more severe in boys than in girls. Boys with Fragile X Syndrome have a cognitive disability with an average IQ of 50, so if they meet criteria for autism, they'll be considered medium-to-low functioning by IQ and/or adaptive behaviour standards. Girls can be anywhere from as severely affected as boys to completely NT, with many in between the extremes having mild social difficulties with no language delay. Also, since men have an X and a Y, if a Fragile X man (or a premutation carrier - usually NT) has children, his sons will all be NT and his daughters all have Fragile X. A Fragile X woman has 50/50 affected children of either sex. So, since girls function better than boys, Fragile X kids who inherited it from their father (and are 100% female) would on average function better than those who inherited it from their mother (50% male). But daughters of either parent would be no different in functioning.

If it really is sex of the parent making the difference, that would be more consistent with an imprinted gene. For example, UBE3A, a gene on chromosome 15, is only expressed in eggs, not in sperm. So a typical child has one functional copy of UBE3A, inherited from the mother. However, a mutation that renders UBE3A nonfunctional causes Angelman Syndrome (which causes handflapping and severe speech delay, but also relatively good social skills, so they usually don't meet autism criteria), and a mutation that increases UBE3A function can cause autism. In this case, though, it wouldn't cause more severe/less severe autism - instead, inheriting the mutation from the father would have no effect whatsoever.

However, if a family had polygenetic autism due to a mix of imprinted and non-imprinted genes, and the imprinted gene or genes were maternally activated, then children who inherited autism from their fathers would be silent carriers of the imprinted genes and only express the non-imprinted genes, while those who inherited autism from their mothers would have both imprinted and non-imprinted autism genes expressed. So it is possible for a family to show that effect.

But imprinted genes don't seem important to the majority of cases of polygenetic familial autism. And even in a family that has the pattern described, it could arise purely by chance. You'd have to directly test some candidate maternally imprinted genes (like UBE3A), and see if any mutation was observed in kids with maternally inherited autism.

And of course, there are also paternally imprinted genes too.