If you had one SEN DC

Not me personally, but I taught children of a family - 3 of them, all 3 had ASD.

Eldest was high functioning and although very much a loner, seemed to get on fine. Stayed on at the 6th form.

Middle one was also high functioning. Extremely intelligent and although he had his quirks, he found friends. He was in the top sets and the other kids were very tolerant. He is starting 6th form now.

Youngest, bless him, struggled massively. Could, but didn't talk. Either to staff or other kids. Intelligent kid from what we could gather. But, goodness me, if something didn't go the way he wanted/planned, he would completely explode. Throwing things, screaming, hitting staff/pupils. It was distressing to see in all honesty because he was so clearly struggling. I left the school but I believe he moved to a specialist school.

So, some families can have multiple kids with ASD. Equally, there will be some that don't.

Absolutely. I think they occur together more often than not, but it’s like tossing a coin re. which one will get diagnosed first sometimes.

It may well be that ND conditions and the different ways that they manifest are similar - so the same genetic inheritance can cause 1 person to have ASD, another ADHD for example, potentially in combination with other (environmental?) factors and triggers. Very little is know about this at the moment but it seems plausible to me.

Yes @Amidlifecrisis this is very plausible explanation to me.

I have 2 DS's 8 years apart. Both have ADHD. I knew I couldn't cope with 2 children with SN at once. So I had to wait to have my second just in case they had SN too. He did.

@SleeplessInShoeburyness re the diabetic thing, T1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition, and as far as I know it’s autoimmune conditions generally that are genetic and so run in families, rather than diabetes specifically.

We have a lot of autoimmune conditions in my family on my dad’s side with people suffering from T1 diabetes (1 person), hypothyroidism (5 people), coeliac disease (2 people), rheumatoid arthritis (2 people). They are different conditions but are linked in that they all arise from the body’s immune system attacking itself, it’s just that it is different parts that end up being attacked (the pancreas/ the thyroid gland/ the intestine etc).

It may well be that ND conditions and the different ways that they manifest are similar - so the same genetic inheritance can cause 1 person to have ASD, another ADHD for example, potentially in combination with other (environmental?) factors and triggers. Very little is know about this at the moment but it seems plausible to me.

Yes. Started with first child. During assessment we realised that we as parents probably were too. Then next the child was autistic. We all are. We like to say a neuro diverse family.

DD1 - ASD and ADHD
DD2 - neuro typical

Their dad very likely has ADHD although this has never been officially diagnosed and as an adult he has learnt to deal with his condition so you wouldn't really notice he wasn't neuro typical.

I'm hoping DD1 learns the same coping techniques.

Both of mine are autistic and have adhd. I'm not sure I would know what to do with a NT child.

I have same sex fraternal twins. DTS1 is NT and high ability in terms of intelligence and DTS2 has ASD (not diagnosed until 17) and a learning disability with low IQ.

DTS1 was a red faced chubby ball at birth. DTS2 was lower birthweight and much longer in length, pale, thin and fragile (and starving) as if he hadn’t got enough nourishment in the womb. The pics of them as newborns side by side are crazy to look at.

The placentas were fused and I’ve often thought DTS1 must have got more blood/oxygen supply in the womb than DTS2. DTS2 had overtaken DTS1 in terms of weight by the time they were 6 months old and was 6ft 4 to DTS1’s 5ft 9 by the time they were teens. He was definitely supposed to be bigger at birth as he’s not got a a naturally skinny frame. He’s very muscular with heavy bones.

We also have an older DD and younger DS who are NT and higher ability in terms of intelligence.

No ND in my very large family and in DH’s very large family, a niece has ASD (much younger than our DC and only picked up as we picked up on it) although she is extremely high functioning with a Mensa level IQ.

What I don’t get is if it is genetic, how come there is such a wide spectrum of ASD, some have learning disabilities and some are geniuses? How does that happen? Surely if it was genes, everybody who had it would be on the same spectrum with the same level of low or high IQs?

Does anyone have a mix of low and high IQs alongside ASD in their families like in ours?

Our youngest DC has Type 1 diabetes (at age 12) which is also thought to be genetic but we have absolutely no one else in our families who have ever had it so I do get a bit frustrated when these things are said to be genetic when there is no conclusive evidence.

DH and I lost another child in our late 20’s who had a extremely rare lethal syndrome (so rare it was only the 7th recorded case and not picked up on until 32 weeks into the pregnancy) which is stated to be genetic despite very little research and we had genetic testing/counselling at that time (before we had DTSs) which came back with nothing.

@Icycloud - not true in our case.

My oldest is autistic, my youngest is not although they are dyslexic so still ND.

People talking about a genetic component - is this something that you have been told by a medical professional?

We asked the doctor who diagnosed our son and she said that there is no "neurodivergent" gene but they can see traits running in families.

@Jellycats4life - interesting that you know of other parents with ADHD who have then had an autistic child/children. I wish we understood more about the connection.

Not in my case but my children have different fathers. My child who has SEN has a cousin on her dad's side who is autistic.

I think they’ve all got autism and ADHD

@Jellycats4life perhaps but I’m also guessing once one sibling is diagnosed there’s better awareness and screening of ND conditions, so the other child is more likely to be picked up/diagnosed?

This is why I believe ADHD and ASD are two sides of the same coin with the same genetic origins. They can’t be two distinct conditions.

I know so many families with an ADHD parent (or parents) and autistic kids. Or siblings: one with ADHD and one autistic. It’s no coincidence.

DS1 has a diagnosis of aspergers, DS2 diagnosis of autism and ADHD and DS3 is awaiting assessment but we're fairly certain he is autistic too. I recieved a diagnosis of autism between having DS2 and DS3 and my DH was diagnosed with ADHD a few months. Neither of us would have considered we were neurodiverse until we had the kids and it became obvious.

We had a full gene panel done for all of us (DS1 has drug resistant epilepsy) and there was nothing found to suggest a genetic link for autism, but clearly there must be somewhere.

I find this interesting as, looking at DH’s family there is clearly a lot of (undiagnosed) neurodiversity.

His mum’s father (DH grandfather) was very likely autistic. He had 6 children, 3 of whom are likely autistic (all probably Asperger’s in old terms). Two of those 3 had kids. One has 2 NT kids, one has 1 NT, 1 ASD (DH’s cousin, Asperger’s diagnosis). Of the 3 who are NT, they had a combined total of 8 children, 1 of whom is ND (also Asperger’s). So an autistic grandparent has produced 10 NT grandchildren, 2 ND.

So it seems based on that sample that both ND and NT parents can pass the ND trait to their kids, but it’s not guaranteed that they will do so. I think that is broadly reflective of the stats on a population level quoted on this thread. Obviously the chances will be increased if there is neurodivergence on both sides.

No autism on mine or DH’s side of family. DC1 NT, DC2 diagnosed with autism at 3 🤷‍♀️

Both my children are autistic. However, neither my DH nor I are autistic. It has perplexed me for years, but I think it can come from further back in the family (I suspect my FIL).

And DH was recently diagnosed with ADD, so we now know he's neurodiverse.

@ellielliejjtiny - that's fascinating. I always joke that neither of my children (both autistic) knew the right way to be born: one was back to back; the other was breech. Both were turned before birth (the first by me using an NHS rocking chair, the second with manual manipulation), so their births didn't influence their development.

Do you have any links to more information on this?

Op there's a link between perinatal injuries and oxygen deprivation and neurodevelopmental disorders, but it's possible that the difficulties were already stemming from the genetics and so the neural differencies of the baby i.e. hypotony.

One of pps has already written the statistics: 1 in 5 families are multiplex which likely means that in their case it's passed genetically to the kids. Parents don't have to be autistic for this, at all, because you can be a sort of asymptomatic carrier. Of course if there's autism in your family the risk being a carrier is much higher.

But you don't know which type (multiplex or simplex) you belong until you have 2-4 kids.

We're both NT DH and me, but DH has an adult cousin with aspergers whose DS has aspergers, too. We had no idea we had higher risk until both my 2 DCs were born. My DS has aspergers and severe ADHD and is a very difficult case since birth. My younger DC is in contrast very easy going despite likely also having something going on.

Surprisingly I don't know anyone else irl with multiple DCs with autism apart from us. It's a bit isolating.

My son has asd. After his diagnosis we realised dd is likely to have adhd. I have asd (diagnosed after son)

I have 5DC and of our 5,2 of our DC are autistic DS22 and DD15.

Dds autism is alot worse than DSs bless her.

yes. DC1 has asd and severe learning difficulties. DC2 has HF ASD, a host of mental health issues and an eating disorder. No ASD in our wider families...