To think autism gets worse with each generation

Men and women are becoming parents later which increases risk. It wasn’t unusual to have children into your late 30s/40s but you probably would have had lots of other children much younger so the risk is being concentrated in a smaller number of children.

Assortive mating means that people with autistic traits are more likely to partner with each other (for example, young people move to cities and find partners in similar education or jobs whereas before that you would marry someone from your village).

More awareness, very autistic children were often sent away never to be seen again and many others were just seen as “a bit simple”.

In the past, those who required more support tended to be excluded from mainstream society, put into special schools and then into residential care. They were generally invisible and missed out on milestones like getting married and having children of their own.

Just wanted to say this isn’t the case for all those who went to specialist provisions. DH’s sibling went to specialist school, now has a son and is engaged, has a small job. Not fully functioning by neurotypical standards, but still.

I'm not sure if it does but I suppose one thing to consider is that perhaps someone who has very high support needs, and is more severely affected by their autism may be less likely to go on to have children. So there are unlikely to be as many examples of a parent with severe autism having a child with less severe ASD? Whereas the other way around would happen more often.

Load of twaddle. Autism is a spectrum.

Lots of autism in my family, all of my nephews and DS2 have an official diagnosis and all present differently, my youngest DN probably the most severe. Going back further there were a great aunt and uncle who were not able to attend school and my DM has several cousins who were quietly put into institutions as family couldn't cope, most of those were non verbal. Current generation is getting a lot more help and is a lot less hidden.

This isn’t a pattern I have noticed in our circles. Lots of autism in my career field, we tend to marry other ND people and have ND children. They seem to be just like us, people who do struggle in many ways, but also get huge benefits towards being high achieving from being ASD.

Is it getting more severe or are we just more aware now? I was not diagnosed as a child but might be if I were a primary school child of today.

In the past, those who required more support tended to be excluded from mainstream society, put into special schools and then into residential care. They were generally invisible and missed out on milestones like getting married and having children of their own.

Nowadays, we make more efforts to involve those with disabilities in society and families are less likely to hide away children with additional needs.

Although there could very well be other factors at play, such as increasing parental age and various changes to our environment, I suspect a major one is simply a change in visibility.

This sounds like a case for my favourite phrase: "The plural of anecdote is not data."

What you're saying may be true. It equally may not be true. Unless someone has done an actual scientific study including statistical analysis then there's no reason to conclude one way or another. You also ideally want a casual link.

Editing to add some anecdata: it's not the case in our family.

Maybe because society is more keyed up to recognising it and accepting it and masking is less and less necessary as generations have passed. So the characteristics are “allowed” now rather than actually being more prevalent. As a teacher I see this in the classroom and deal with more openly SEN kids now than I did when I started almost 20 years ago, several times as many actually.

Because people with more severe autism (apologies if that’s worded badly) from the previous generation didn’t have children?

I don’t know shit about eugenics, but I would disagree. There is no pattern in either mine or my DH’s family, just random varying levels of functioning. Mostly undiagnosed. Our DC will probably be the first to be officially diagnosed.

This is also true for me and my children as well as a few of the other parents at my kids ASN school. Autism is such a mystery.

Yes i think so

Have you researched this or is your question based on a handful of experiences you have had in your life?

I’ve noticed that too

Hmm. It's true for my family. Watching with interest as I had no idea this might be a thing.

Genuine eugenics question?