Autism is genetic

[jonesonscam]

The National Autistic Society has just said something pretty significant: Autism is genetic. Not “possibly genetic”. Not “we’re not really sure what causes it”.

After reviewing 83 research papers, the NAS is now stating definitively that autism is genetic. You’re born autistic and you’re autistic for life. Most autistic people are autistic because of genes they inherited from their parents.

I think this matters enormously because for decades, autism has been surrounded by nonsense about vaccines, parenting, mothers doing something wrong, pregnancy, diet and a million other things.

It has left parents blaming themselves, and autistic people being told that something caused them to be autistic that could somehow have been prevented.

There isn't an “autism gene”. Thousands of genes are involved, and genetics is complicated. But the basic message is now remarkably clear: autism isn't something that happened to someone. It's something they were born with.

That matters because when we stop looking for something to blame, we can start looking at what actually matters: understanding autistic people, supporting them properly, and making a society that works for them.

This all feels like a pretty important shift.

It’s fascinating you’ve traced the tism so far back in your family. How did you do it and how do you know Jedediah was autistic?

Oh absolutely, it was a horrendous thing (would be in cases where both twins adopted separately rather than one being removed from birth family but still) .
My point was that people still use the term 'twin studies' to imply you are isolating the impact of genetics. Which is not the case.

I always thought my family were all normal and it was other people that were odd.

30 years later (and some education into autistic traits and behaviours) I can see about 85% of us are autistic. It varies between mild and (oddly) functional, and in the case of a couple of us, fairly severely affected.

Other than the two who lead restricted lives due to it, for the rest of us, it's just how we are. We work. Live independent lives away from our parents. Parent our (mostly autistic) children.

Some of us are diagnosed, some know but can't be bothered with a diagnosis, some would rather pretend it isn't true. Each to their own.

When I first realised my DC was autistic I felt as if it was catastrophic. But since we've all realised, it's just become part of our lives.

Did I read something about associative mating having increased along with the opportunity for women to attend higher education becoming mainstream? Seems to me that this could well be playing its part in the story.

As per my previous post, though, I feel that the world is becoming more hostile to those who are blessed with high functioning senses. My ancestors didn’t struggle to function as much in their environment. Arguably, they were happy and successful in their own way. Why this should result in ME being the problem (namely, that I have a “disability”), rather than that the world has just turned to shit, is unclear. And, I would argue, more than a little unfair. But hey, logic has gone out of the window too these days - which is of course also a problem for us rational thinkers!

It still provides useful data though, especially when the scale is large enough. The fact that identical twins have a much higher concordance rate than fraternal twins and that this result is reliably replicated across studies does have meaning.

Given that autism can only be diagnosed based on observed behaviour the data will never be completely unimpeachable - and developing a genetic test would still require the current diagnosis method for a baseline...

Silberman definitely suggests most of that in Neurotribes (selective mating, silicon valley, the world used to suit "quirky" Autistic people who were left to get on with it but didn't have the chance to meet one another and have children) but he's a journalist not a scientist nor a medic nor someone who actually works in the field, and there are some romantic flights of fancy, especially concerning Autism before it had a name, in that very appealing but not necessarily entirely factual book...

You're only talking about the kind of Autism that can go undiagnosed though.

There are plenty of Autistic adults nowadays receiving 24 hour care from their parents or in residential homes who would not have survived childhood in the days of your happy ancestors. They don't get much press, but they're as autistic as you are.

Except everyone who has! Glad the NAS has caught up.

Why do you think the world is more hostile? For most of history, most people would have very little or no choice about the clothes they wore. So if scratchy, rough materials or wool were a problem for your senses you would have no way of avoiding that. When people lived communally, you would have no way of avoiding the noise and smell associated with that. For most of history, most people had very little to no privacy. Children with severe ARFID ( often coincides with autism) probably just died or were badly malnourished.

There were no headphones to block our noise, no remote working for those who could not cope with the noise of offices, and no online communities to find other people like you.

In many ways, its probably much easier to forge a life that fits with the sensory needs of autism than it ever has been.

A random pick:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41431-025-01901-1

But there are thousands of others if you bothered to look and different genetic syndromes

Ha that makes sense- thankyou

Personally, I think it's been pretty obvious for a long time ... people just don't want to admit they 'caused' it in their children. Hopefully we can move past that sentiment now and just look how to support people who need support.

Possibly, but also could just be because there is high rates of unemployment for autistic people, so more likely that in families with high rates of autism that poverty and other stressors would also be a factor.

Those are chromosomal mutations though - we knew about that decades ago, and indeed I listened multiple deletion syndromes, duplications and structural abnormalities in previous posts. You corrected me when I said that the only large scale study mapping the gene arrays associated with an Autistic profile without a chromosomal syndrome had been shut down due to fears it would lead to prenatal testing.

Are there studies mapping the genes that map to an Autism diagnosis without a chromosomal disorder or syndrome?

Thank you for your reply.

Yes, I do realise that, and to be honest, there were certainly some family members who were less “successful” and I do not know much about them. And to the extent that we were “successful”, it was within a fairly narrow field so query how much of a success that truly was. I suppose I am just trying to get to grips with the fact that my own life has become very significantly harder recently due to various technological and social developments and I am grieving the past.

Certainly don’t mean to dismiss the experiences of more profoundly affected individuals. I guess we are back to the debate about whether autism should be sub-divided according to levels of support needed etc. Which I appreciate is very contested and I am not qualified to comment on.

Again not necssarily my sons chromosome disorder that likely caused his autism and learning disabillitis is De novo.

I have definitely read something relating to older fathers and lots about older mothers.

I didnt cause it in my son the chromosome deletion that occured spontaneousley at conception did
We are going round in circles in this thread genetic doesnt always mean its inherited .

I was told there's the old sperm theory. I assume it was because generally as mentioned, autistic people meeting and having children later

I can only speak for myself and changes throughout my lifetime. It has become a lot more hostile for me in the last ten years or so and certainly compared to my childhood days when leaf blowers, pressure washers, outdoor speakers, LED lights etc didn’t exist. The noise and smells of other people just speaking (not amplified via a phone) and animals and nature are far less problematic for me than machinery and technology, and synthetic fragrances etc. I don’t find so called noise cancelling headphones effective and frankly, again I don’t see why I should have to wear headphones constantly to block out the noise of other people’s selfishness. Not to mention that I need to be aware of my surroundings because I have children and elderly parents to look after and I need to be aware of my surroundings for safety reasons.

The risk factors for de novo genetic mutations are the same for genetic mutations and chromosome aneuploidy, so is it possible that Autism attributed to chromosome disorders is in fact a seperate diagnosis cause by the same environmental factors (eg. poor sperm health, advancing maternal/paternal age).

All of my nephews and my own son are autistic. I strongly believe both of my parents are autistic although neither have a diagnosis.

Unless identical twins they won’t have the same genome and even between identical twins there could be some differences..

Autism isn’t a single thing - it is numerous things that result in similar behavioural
outcomes. There have been attempts to look at the impact on the brain of single gene mutations including in animals but these impacts cannot be generalised across all the different gene changes that result in outcomes that include symptoms labelled as ‘autism’. Currently research into autism is a bit like grouping fatigue from cancer, anaemia, insomnia, depression, etc as ‘tired all the time’ and looking for a common medical explanation and being confused when you can’t find one.

Well, it would need diagnostic criteria to identify candidate genes, but could then be tested as to whether it had predictive power (ie test baby and then observe whether autistic traits present as they grew) So help seeking and diagnostic biases could be eliminated. The baron Cohen twin studies often had one twin 'clear cut' and one more ambiguous.

Why do you keep talking in terms of chromosomes, not genes? A genetic condition is not synonymous with a chromosomal one.

As a parent to an autistic child I already knew this. Older family members may not have a diagnosis but it is obvious.