To just remind you that autism is genetic?

This is something I’m seriously concerned about in perusing an adult adhd diagnosis. I fully suspect autism in deeply buried under there (teenage me these days would have been diagnosed with both but I’ve learned to socially mask greatly since), but ADHD is fully at the wheel. It’s becoming increasingly detrimental to my life though, my brain is fried and I can no longer focus enough to do anything I used to enjoy, like reading.

BS? Really?
People having real improvements and you’re calling it BS?

I have moved away from parts of the autism community because of shit like this, along with many others.

The absolute denial that we can take some responsibility for our own experiences and outcomes. There seems to be a real attachment to victimhood and not having any control over our own lives in too many groups, which is really unhealthy for us and for our children.

Yes autism is largely genetic/heritable, but there is a huge head in sand affect that there is anything we can do to improve our lives. I get that there are parents out there going to extremes and giving their children bleach enemas, electric shock therapy etc, but tweaking a diet is not on this level and shouldn’t be written off as such. It’s alienating to an awful lot of people who know that it works for them.

Calling another poster’s experience BS - I mean, wtf! Who are you to dismiss a benign method that is working for lots of people, whether you want it to or not!

Also has anyone watched sweet tooth series and their brains made the link between how the hybrids/kids are treated as the problem and prevailers of all things bad and cause of the sickness when actually the problem wasn't them.

Sorry weird tangent. Personally I don't want to cure my ASD my life in someways seems less complicated than my NT counter parts tbh.

Autism runs through dhs family but went unknown before this latest generation where the majority of his nieces/nephews and our children have been diagnosed with either autism, adhd or both. When you look at the other generations it seems obvious now knowing what we know but they were all oblivious until their own children started getting diagnosed.

Oh and they all pretty much exclusively started having children in their 20s so age wasn't a factor there.

Its something i warn people about as an adult with AuDHD.

late diagnosis and use of medication as an adult, is going to suddenly hand your Autism the rudder, and you will be at sea with your Autism in charge and it doesn't know how to steer the boat.

I ended up giving up my adhd meds, my brain is quieter on them but my autism was suddenly catapulted front and center, and my mood and sensory regulation abilities went totally out the window.

I really agree with this.

It's amazing how you can spot the NT on this thread implying that op has a hidden meaning or agenda for her post.

When that's literally spouted as a "ND bad trait" saying exactly what you mean with no hidden agenda .

How that's the trait that's considered bad is quite beyond me.... but heck I probably miss the point right 😅

We don't, other than my sister having a speech impediment when younger (and my niece to a lesser extent.) I wouldn't be surprised if my boyfriend is ND either.
I never had support at school, despite struggling with writing and maths, because I was bright and could read really well. I was also precocious and was comfortable talking to adults. I don't have a super high IQ, but I'm good at remembering things. I also manage alright socially. If little one is like me and his nanny he'll be alright. 😊

All due respect, I am autistic as are my children and many of my family.

I didn’t once suggest that what I eat would help everyone. It could help some though.

What I eat helps me, and helps some of my friends to live our lives in a much easier, less stressful way. It didn’t my son, but was worth a trial - he has no limiting issues with food so it didn’t hurt him to try it.

What I object to is the blanket shut down on any suggestions that certain things might ease the difficulties. The assumption that easing symptoms is the same as suggesting a cure.

I don’t believe there is a cure for autism, it is what it is. However in my experience I have come to strongly believe that we can find things that make life more bearable - and why wouldn’t we do that if we could? My daughter has a carefully structured exercise routine that helps her to manage her mental health - that might help some but not others.

The response in many autism community spaces is overwhelmingly negative, which I don’t understand. Surely we all have a responsibility to ourselves to try to live the best lives we can in the varying ways that we can find, without being told that we don’t want autistic people to exist, which is ridiculous as I am autistic! If any autistic people have found ways that have helped them I always love to hear it, because maybe it will work for one of my children, or my friends, or even me. I would never suggest to them that they’re being offensive in any way.

Yup!

there is more to it than genetics but people are keen to go that way. Prematurity often brings intraventricular haemorrhaging in the brain, amongst similar. The brain needs to find different pathways and then… guess what

Amen op.

I think in previous generation if you were rich and ND you would have been considered eccentric, downtown abbeys the grandmother springs to mind or locked away in a posh house never to be seen or recognised by anyone in wider society.

If you were poor you would have probably ended up in mental facility or died.

I personally don't think there more ND around, I think there's more visibility of ND traits due to it not be considered shameful being ND . So society doesn't require as much masking as it is as whole it's more accepting of ND.

Whenever I hear the words eccentric used to describe an older person it now translates to potentially undiagnosed ND from someone who probably has no interest in getting a label.

Peoples needs don't change with a label- the behaviours that have been knocking around for years just understanding and visibility has grown. People now have access to more information that triggers the thought "oh wait I thought that was just me having some weird foibles - that's ND ? But wait there are other people with the same foibles"

And usually it's NT people who point out the behaviours as "not normal" where as the ND person is just existing as they always have. While some NT people are aghast at the thought people might be ok with being ND and worse those ND people aren't showing shame and get their knickers in a twist about it. Bit like NT kids picking on ND for being weird but in adult form.

I say this as a middle aged late diagnosed female with ASD - with my daughter's diagnosis prompting the doctors to go .. you know there's a genetic component right shall we do a few test with you 😵‍💫 low and behold

I can't tell you how much of a head fuck it is for someone to come along and tell you btw you have asd when you have spent a good chunk of your life thinking you just sucked at life. My traits didn't appear with my diagnosis, I just managed/ masked them to fit into society.

Highly functional ND doesn't equal 🟰 life's easier for the person with ND.
It means it's easier for NT people to cope with the ND persons traits and that person to pass as NT

I don't have any problem when I leave my ND house and family. It's usually when I encounter NT people who are hell bent on suggesting ND means the persons defective in some way . Some people tend to think that because the world is geared towards NT so anything that doesn't fit into that "mould" is wrong.

I'm married, house owner, have two children and good circle of friends (all whom un surprising ND) and on a 6 figure salary and have been since I was 30
And I got there by being lucky enough to be surrounded by family teachers who worked with my ND not against it.

I said what I said 🤷‍♀️

Many of my autistic siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles would have been institutionalised, and indeed a few were (before diagnosis was widespread), and later went on to get married.

Professor Simon Baron Cohen has produced some amazing research on this topic.

This

There's growing evidence of environmental factors according to some of the world's leading experts.

what point is OP trying to make?

Last I checked nobody is ENTIRELY sure what causes Autism. And better yet, there is a lot of debate on the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria.

And it is often confused with other coditions.

And it is often diagnosed in some places because an autism diagnosis legally requires certain therapy/interventions/help at school.

So what's your point OP???

The more is in inverted commas, which leads me to believe that @robotgun is indicating it's not more at all, only that it might seem that way.

I often think about the parental age link. Surely autistic people take longer to mature emotionally, and therefore start relationships later, on the whole? It’s not causation.

There's some animal studies which have suggested a higher risk. Changes in neurodevelopment on imaging and pain perception on fluoxetine exposed animal neonates. It makes sense in a way with serotonin being a neuromodulator

No, it isn’t.

The mouse studies are silly. Autism is diagnosed, by definition, from observing social behaviours. Humans are complex social animals. Mice are not. I have read some of the mouse studies - they’re very very silly. Stuff like ‘oh, the mice spend more time burying marbles than other mice, so they’re autistic’. If it was that easy to diagnose autism (in humans), there wouldn’t be a multi-stage multi-hour diagnostic process.

The autistic adults who were institutionalised are not the same autistic adults who are now having children. I’m in my mid-40s and there’s not a snowball’s chance in Hades I’d have been institutionalised. I’m told by my elderly mum that my DS7 would have been caned for bad behaviour and ‘naughtiness’ in her day, not institutionalised.

These are two wholly different groups of people. The only ‘increasing prevalence’ theories that make sense are ones about children surviving brain injury due to extreme prematurity and ‘assortative mating’ between geeks.

Predisposition to Autism is genetic.

Our genes interact with the environment in complex ways.

I think that our modern environment ‘favours’ autistic traits.

Yeah I guess that's the issue. So many confounders and never going to be able to conduct a study to show causation. The only things I've read showed association.

It’s genetic, and epigenetic to an extent.

Since DS1 got his Level 1 Autism/ADHD diagnoses, I’ve spotted it on all sides of my/DH’s families.

I used to think his mum had a personality disorder, but it’s ‘just’ maladaptive autism coping mechanisms 🤣 my mum has chronic ADHD, one of the worst cases I’ve ever encountered 🤣🤣

It's more complex than this. Autism is caused by a complicated combination of genetic and environmental factors. There are various environemtal factors that have been identified, for example the study on mice showing that the presence of a certain microbiome in the mother during pregnancy reduced the risk of autism-like behaviours in offspring, but we're not at the stage where we can medicate to actually try and control the outcomes.
Also, because autistic people are better integrated now than in the past, when they were often institutionalised, they are more likely to have children, and therefore there are more children being born who are autistic.

If you don’t have a history of learning disability in your family, you’ll get ‘the children you deserve’. The crazy thing about ‘familial autism’ (as I call it) is that you can have super-amazing kids who seem perfectly ‘normal’ to you, but have ridiculous support needs the minute they leave your care.

Honestly, I have a wonderful, super-smart, very mature, extremely sensible DS7 who needs an EHCP (and a 1-to-1) to be in school. He’s no trouble whatsoever at home and I can take him literally anywhere (or, at least, anywhere I want to go myself with two kids).

Because he has an EHCP, I keep getting adverts from the council telling me I’m eligible for respite care. I always look at it, thinking, “well, I’m so glad they’re able to offer respite care to the parents of children with very high support needs. It must be so tough being a full-time carer for a child with that level of need”…

Well said OP. Just wanted to add my opinion to this. I don't think autism is created more often by parents having children later. I've seen so many parents having children in their teens and 20s (like me) who had babies young and their children are autistic. No surprise that one or both parents in each case is also autistic.

I'm positive it's purely genetics and not age or anything else food or environment related at all.

it's fantastic that more people of all generations are diagnosed now.

I think the NTs are freaking out that they will be the minority while us autistics take over the world!

NOT Sorry us autistics have the right to love to fuck and procreate like the rest of you.

I fear for DD, she has parents who are both old and both quite probably undiagnosed neurodivergent. Ah well, at least we understand each other 😂😳🤣