Why would one family have so much neurodivergence

[telewubbies]

I’m autistic, my son is autistic, my sister has quite profound learning difficulties and asd, my other sister has adhd, two of her kids have adhd, I’m sure my mum also has adhd. My brothers ds is autistic and he himself is most likely undiagnosed as he’s always had his ways !

Do you think alot of families are like this ? It just seems every one of us has something and it seems like alot.
Obviously it’s a genetic thing but I wonder what actually causes those genetics?

There have always been lots of people with high support needs, but in the past they were locked away in institutions, drugged, lobotomised and chained to radiators. Luckily we know better now.

You need to study the medical and scientific research, not ask MN 😀

It may be that the research hasn't even been done yet.

There's a lot of missed diagnosis out there. Especially if you are female. Especially if you fit what would have once been called Aspergers and are able to get through life with it fairly well hidden.

I'm 50, undiagnosed, but sure as heck I'm autistic. I can just get by with it well hidden. I am sure I will never be formally diagnosed.

I’m my family autism and adhd was so prevalent that we didn’t raise any of us had it until my first son was pretty badly affected. Very late speech, intense struggles with school, socialising and eye contact etc. but that was 25 years ago and so he got a diagnosis and that was it. Fast forward to now and 3/4 of my adult children have a diagnosis of adhd and or autism with another one pending. My sisters two sons have a diagnosis too. All 4 of my grandsons are showing signs. One is much worse than the others and is very speech delayed and struggles hugely. I’ve also realised that the few friends my sister and I have made and kept long term are also ND although got no interest in pursuing anything as they cope ok and can’t keep a job /routine. I think being ND means that you are often attractive to other people with ND. Like attracts like. This boosts the chances of you falling for/ breeding with a person with ND and giving your kids a double whammy.

interestingly in our family the boys are often heavily “front loaded” with issues like learning /speech delays and massive sensory issues but the girls are often the opposite and are hyperlexic and very good at school until they hit puberty/high school. Then it’s like the masking becomes too much and the wheels fall off spectacularly. We tend to do amazing at primary and then absolutely SHIT at high school. And it’s not lack of intelligence. The system just doesn’t work for us. I left school with 0 GCSE’s despite being in the top set for everything. But I still went in to get a degree in English and then decided to do a masters. My eldest dd left school with nothing, but is now pursuing an open uni BA. my youngest dd failed every one of her mocks with Us and we paid privately for an emergency adhd assessment and medication and blow me down, she passed everything with 5/6/7s. She’s now completing a tlevel in engineering. My life and my eldest DDs life would/could have been spectacularly different if we had a diagnosis and medication in high school.

There was a thread a short while ago on MN showing recent research suggests four sub-groups of autism, as far as I recall only one of which was strongly hereditary.
Sometimes autism appears 'from nowhere' in a baby born to a family that has no history of it - that was one of the other groups.

Does anyone have the link?

My DD's autism appeared from nowhere in a family that wasn't at all ND.

Then we realised all my children were ND. As was my DH. My son in law. My brother in law. My father. My mother. My MIL. My FIL. Given the collection, I'm sure there's no way I'm NT in this lot.

https://www.princeton.edu/news/2025/07/09/major-autism-study-uncovers-biologically-distinct-subtypes-paving-way-precision

Well the very heavily affected still are but we call it residential care and is more therapeutic. It's more the people that are not 'high functioning' so still require support that is often rejected.

Same, but cat 🐈 😂

Most ND is likely to be hereditary. As previous posters have suggested, like attracts like, so we find each other.

I also believe that ever-evolving internet access (being able to find other ND people easily over the past 20-odd years) has been conducive to the rising number of ND children!

i am surprised so many of you here know you are neurodivergent.
i assume these are recent diagnoses?

I agree. System has always been bad. When will it improve?! My DD also coped in primary. Pear shaped in Seniors. She only got acknowledgment for ND near to end of high school. Gate keeping stops any support.

Need diagnosis earlier instead of excuses.

We could write a book @GreenGodiva
Similar experiences and agree. ‘Not lack of intelligence’. They shouldn’t write us off.

They tried 3 times to get me to de register.

All to common, but they don’t want to know.

I was only diagnosed last year at age 36. My dad wasn’t diagnosed until his forties.

It’s really, really common for high masking individuals to go decades without a proper diagnosis. I was fobbed off with depression and anxiety from the age of about 14 without ever actually feeling depressed in the true sense of the word.

Turns out I was actually experiencing autistic shutdowns.

My note adult son was diagnosed autistic in 2010, then with ADHD in 2021. My adult dd got diagnosed with adhd in 23, and my 17 yo dd in 24 and myself in 25. To add, not all of these are nhs, some of us have paid privately for to being at crisis point like with my DDs gcse mock failures. If I hadn’t got that paid for privately, sure would have failed every exam.

My theory is that modern life has made things much harder for autistic people with lower support needs as well which is why diagnoses are becoming more common.

If I think about my mum, she had 1 O level and that was considered fine. She worked in the same council job for years and that was ok to support us. Then she tried to get another job in her 50s and it was impossible. Long job applications, qualifications, presentations etc for entry jobs!

So on the one hand it’s good that people get support now but it’s partly because employment has made it necessary. Simply participating in society now requires far more than it used to.

We say the same. 😅 How did we managed to get an autistic dog too. I completely agree with @Sensibletrousers , we bring a lot to the table and have excellent bullshit detectors, compared to other people.

I absolutely agree with you.

Society used to be much slower and much less stimulating. Many people with low support needs could bimble along quite happily, working in a low pressure job, or in a job that fit their “niche” and they didn’t need to worry about anything else because that was enough to support them and make them happy.

One of my major struggles is how busy and loud the world is, everyone is rushing, there are so many sounds and lights and constant movement and talking and it’s so overwhelming.

i guess the responses are in the main from those with a diagnosis

Do they? I've never seen it given a figure before, just that there's a "genetic element." I'm not being snarky. Do you have a study or news article about it?

I think this too. DH and I met when I was 29 and he was 34. For the first time in our lives we felt totally at ease with a partner and were engaged within 6 months. Long, long happy marriage. Several decades into the marriage, awareness of neurodiverity became very widespread. DS was diagnosed with autism and ADHD. Then DH discovered he is autistic and I discovered I have ADHD. Without a doubt my mum has severe ADHD. No one was diagnosed in those days. She was just labelled highly scatterbrained and disorganised. So was I. So one parent with autism (high functioning) and the other with ADHD - both traits were sadly passed down to one of our DC.

I feel very sorry for him in some ways, that he got the short straw from both of us. But actually, he's very happy and successful, given these conditions, and of course, both conditions have up sides to them and very desirable qualities too. If they didn't, ND people would never have survived.

A lot of people would say 'learned behaviour'. Especially when you are young you learn to behave from everyone around you.
Special needs cannot be determined from blood tests or xrays. Behaviour is the only way!
I dont know enough about SEN to weigh in, but it does seem likely. Certainly in school we find a high number of kids with SEN in a class seems to spawn behaviour indicative of SEN in other pupils.

Love this. We are all ND in our family and one of our cats definitely has autism.

Well it's in both Mum and Dad family - and I it looking like it's in MIL family as well.

Dsis second child dad - very much has ADHD and newphew is struggling a lot of moment with school.

I suspect at least in Dmum family and me and kids it's possibly related to very mild Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome no diagnosis but we have many of the issues digestive, easily bruised skin and unstable joints but not enough for any medical interest it's just family quirks.

Also gentic doesn't just mean ancestors had it - older father are also an increased risk for autissm as are older grandfathers

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/archive/news/ioppn/records/2013/march/older-grandfathers-autism-risk

Queen Victoria Hemophilia type was very rare and her ancestors didn't have it but her Dad was 51 when she was born and gentic mistakes pile up in sperm with time.

My kids don't have it worse than me or others my age in family what has changed is the school environment and that's made it harder year on year.

That study shows that the so called 'high functioning' autistic people are more likely to have adhd, anxiety and depression. So much for high functioning autists having it easy, which is often claimed on here. Adhd can have devastating effects and lead to addiction and suicide, for example.

And life is so much harder for autistic people now, in so many ways.

My personal opinion is that neurodivergence is not a condition and infact another evolution of human. You all have the diagnosis because you are all related, there for all that other evolutionary type.