Could autism be caused by lack of sleep?

[sharptoothlemonshark]

I don't mean the disrupted sleep all babies and toddlers put their parents through, I mean serious sleep deprivation at an early age. Or deprivation of one type of sleep.

With everything we now know of the need for adequate sleep for brain development, it makes sense that babies who do not get enough are not going to develop normally neurologically.

And many parents with children who have serious ASD report MASSIVE lack of sleep, well beyond normal

Anybody have any insights into this link? Which way round is the cause and effect? or could it be a vicious circle?

YABU - no, asd cannot be caused by lack of sleep/ my autistic child always slept well etc

YANBU - my autistic child was sleep deprived/ there might be a causal link between lack of sleep and going on to develop ASD

Autism can be extremely disabling, of course it would be better to prevent this disability if we could. Some people with mild autism are not disabled, thats great. Many people have severe autism and are disabled by it.

If we came closer to finding the reason it happens, we could potentially prevent it, or mitigate it, and finding the causes are a step towards that. I doubt all autism is caused by the same thing, but I wonder if this is part of the explanation.

It could mean we need to direct more funding and treatments into sleep disturbances in babies and toddlers, whereas at the moment, they are considered just a nuisance that parents will have to put up with until the children outgrow the issue.

I am talking about major sleep disturbances though, obviously all babies will wake up at night

DD2 has ASD and was a good sleeper until puberty.

My ds was an awful sleeper as a baby, just terrible. But it didn't cause his autism, neither did maternal health or poor parenting or any of the other stupid and irritating conspiracy theories that people seem so keen on on here lately.

His ASD was caused by genetics, neurodiversity runs all through my mums side of the family. The cause of his ASD doesn't need investigating as someone suggested yesterday, it's genetic.

I've only seen studies on diet during pregnancy and of the child whilst developing, as a cause of autism, but not sleep. Sleep, however, can be affected either way by autism.

There's no evidence to suggest autism is caused by poor sleep.

There's plenty of observed evidence that people with autism struggle significantly more with sleep than nt people do.

As they say, correlation does not imply causation.

"It is genetic" doesn't explain anything, though, does it. It his his genes doing what? They are doing something ! Maybe making him a poor sleeper?

This is what I am asking, the assumption has always been for decades, probably centuries, that there is a correlation, but correlation does not mean causation

But what if it sometimes does! and we carry on assuming it doesn't?

My autistic child slept in perfect 4 hour cycles from day 1. It was remarkable. Unfortunately, aged 9 she still sleeps.in 4 hour blocks.

@sharptoothlemonshark probably centuries?

If you have an autistic child these random musings really aren't going to do them any favors.

My autistic nephew was a dream baby. Content, slept well, ate well...

Autism can be extremely disabling, of course it would be better to prevent this disability if we could. Some people with mild autism are not disabled, thats great. Many people have severe autism and are disabled by it

There's no such thing as mild autism.

All autistic people are disabled. Not just some of them.

I've reported this thread for ableism. I am so tired of these threads. If you said that people became black because of sleep disturbances, would people see that as acceptable?

Source of this sample?

And I object to the OP's premise that autistic people need to be treated or cured.

Autism doesn't 'develop.' You have it, or you don't. That's the genetic bit: you are born with it. It is a brain processing disorder; your brain is wired differently from the get go.

That also means you can't 'get' it as an adult. You might have muddled through life and not got a diagnosis until an adult, but you will have always had it.

Sleep, food, viral infections, vaccinations - whatever some whack job thinks is to blame for it this month - none of them have anything at all to do with ASD.

I have ASD. I slept 12 hours a night from 6 weeks old, and have always always loved my sleep. HTH.

Poor sleep as a child doesn't cause autism because nothing that happens to an already born child can cause autism. It is how the brain is made and that impacts development, its not caused by any post birth factors.
It's like saying a people with autism have limited diets so maybe their autism is caused by nutritional deficiency because that must impact brain development.
But limited diet is just a potential characteristic of autism it doesn't cause it.
There are lots of factors that potentially contribute to an unborn child developing autism, like genetics, mothers testosterone levels, other genetic conditions like fragile X. But they have an impact when a foetus is developing not when a child is developing.

Agree @TheShellBeach - autism is a disability. And I'm also tired of reading yet another ableist thread.

Autism is mainly genetic, sleep deprivation doesn't cause it, autistic parents cause it.

Because autism is present from birth.

And many parents with children who have serious ASD report MASSIVE lack of sleep, well beyond normal

Reported to who exactly?

So your hypothesis is that those with autism start with a tendency to sleep too much or too little (based on an as of yet unknown correct amount of sleep) and both of these sleep disorders (at a certain threshold? and at a certain point of development?) result in the diagnosis of autism (as opposed to any other neurological or neurodevelopmental conditions?). So babies who don't sleep enough (is that just not enough hours period or does that include those who are very hard to settle but then do sleep?) don't undergo proper brain development and develop autism. Babies who sleep very easily and for long periods also develop autism (is that somehow through the same mechanism?). And somehow we don't see clusters of autism in certain societal groups based on differing sleeping norms but we do see clusters of autism in families. Sounds like there might be a more simple explanation there...

Those who are autistic are born that way. One of my children, who is autistic, slept loads and loads as a baby/toddler/preschooler and it was only when getting towards the end of infant school that they were unable to sleep.

We still have not identified all the genes related to autism and how they all work and interact so it may well be that one of the genes that causes or predisposes a person to have autism there is also a sleep disorder element and that is why the two so often go hand in hand.
I believe this happens quite often in genes. Gene for x also controls y.

Let's assume there's a gene for autism that is also a gene for extremely disordered sleep. What then? Medicating someone to alleviate the symptoms of a genetic condition won't change the genetic condition.

I have autism. So do both my sons. Our sleep is bloody awful. If we'd been identified as having this theoretical gene at birth and had some sort of theoretical sleep aid would we then not have had autism? Well yes we would. Because help to sleep doesn't alter your genes.

Forgive me for being dense but I struggle sometimes to understand what people mean. Are you saying you think there's something that can be done? Are you saying if we could get good sleep we'd stop being autistic? Are you saying more research into the genetics of autism needs to happen?

There’s no such thing as ‘mild’ or ‘severe’ autism op.

you're either autistic or not

It would seem very unlikely that autism could be prevented by making sure, through drugs if needed that babies sleep a lot.
Is this what you are suggesting OP?

It is also worth noting that other neurodivergence like ADHD is also associated with poor sleep, perhaps more than autism is.

we know sleep is needed for brain development, and that there is several types of sleep and they are all needed. so it isn't really much of a stretch to ask ok, so what does this impaired brain development look like, in a child who has NOT had the right amount of each type of sleep needed for brain development?

And I am asking, like autism? prehaps?