To just remind you that autism is genetic?

[robotgun]

Research tells us that 60 to 90% of the risk for autism comes from your genome. Maternal and paternal age are also a significant factor. Also genetic variants exist that cause autism-like behaviours and go undiagnosed because we don't routinely run genetic tests on our children. We also don't routinely institutionalise children that are different to their peers.

There's 'more' autism because people are having babies at older ages. And we are better at spotting autism.

It isn't heavy metals, microplastics, or the MMR.

Sorry, but it seems like every day I open this app and there's a new post saying 'What's going on with all this autism around, eh?' and a slew of replies blaming environmental factors that have no science behind them whatsoever. Or, worse, blaming mothers for reproducing too late in life or eating tuna in pregnancy or taking prescribed meds.

If you see enough of these threads every day you could well start to believe the nonsense that people write, much like people that read the Daily Mail every day start to believe that Meghan Markle is the devil.

Autism has always been here. It's not better or worse than it used to be.

Your reponse to ' and I've tried all my life to fit in and still at my great age do not know what it is I am doing differently from the rest.'
It bamboozles me that other people can see where we are different but we remain oblivious ourselves. How much of our behaviour due to NOt being accepted. So when small we seem fine. But become more and more wary.
Why isn't there a book on 'mannerisms, speech patterns, body language' to help us get it right or at least better?

Would also like to throw thyroid issues into the mix. I am fairly sure I've been subclinical for most of my life but the last 10 years (post birth) had a lot of symptoms - brushed off as anxiety of course being a woman - but the ADHD "traits" I feel I have developed can also be a sign of thyroid issues. Short attention span, emotional disregulation, inability to cope with heat or stress... I really feel there's still a lot unknown about the connection to the thyroid/TSH etc.

FWIW I am also fairly sure my paternal grandma and my father had/have hyperthyroid issues which were undiagnosed (until the last few months of my grandma's life at least). I am also fairly sure my dad is Aspergers.

Hi OP,
If autism is genetic then how us it possible I know identical twins. One has a formal diagnosis of autism and one doesn't. In fact, personality wise they are quite different girls.

@Tinkerbot

"Why isn't there a book on 'mannerisms, speech patterns, body language' to help us get it right or at least better?"

My guess is because the NT people may not be able to agree on the rules to go in the book.

It seems that although people with asd can be considered "ridge" that is because we like patterns and consistency. Same cannot be said for NT to a level in which they would all be able to agree.

Totally with you in sentiment though would be great if there was a book.

I'm not sure if you're deliberately misrepresenting my words here. I didn't say that autism was a catch all for all neurodiversities. I said that autism seems to be, ime, a catch all for varying conditions and disabilities. Not for all neurodiversities. It was a separate point that autism isn't the only neurodiversity.

I'm not sure if you're having trouble comprehending what I'm saying or if you're willfully misunderstanding because you're taking bits and pieces here and there of what I've said and putting them together to completely misconstrue what I've actually said.

You could ask the same question with breast cancer identical twins. One gets it and the other doesn't.

Like anything, ND isn't just caused by one sole thing (annoying for people looking to "fix it") but like anything there's multiple factors that influence the outcome but genetics is a big factor.

It is thought that autism is linked more closely to paternal than maternal age, fyi

Like any condition (physical or mental) , it's an interaction between genetics and environment. The more (genetic) susceptibility one has to something, the less or an environmental stressor you need to get a diagnosis (and vice versa).

Epidemiologist here. It's absolutely right to ask "What about the percentage that is not explained by genetics?", but it is not correct that just because 60-90% of a disease has a genetic cause that there is another 10-40% that comes from environment. It could be that 90% comes from (something that we will conveniently refer to as) the environment. The two percentages in this case do not need to add to 100%. I know that this appears odd at first glance, but it is because some of the 60%-90% may be shared with the environmental (i.e. non-genetic) causes. In other words, it may be that some cases require both an environmental stressor and a genetic "switch" in order to materialise. I'm not writing anything new here. It relates to the sufficient-component cause model developed by Rothman in the 1970s. So, in short, yes - researchers out there have found that there are genetic components to autism, but it doesn't explain 100% of the causation. Therefore there has to be some other unknown percentage explained by other factors, which we can term "environment", and by which I mean everything else that is not genetics. And that can be everything from maternal age to chemical exposures. One thing that it certainly doesn't have anything to do with is MRR - this has been widely debunked. But there could be links to many other environmental factors, and some of those are only now being explored.

Can be genetic as in passed down from parents or previous generation or a new pattern in genetic material that has arisen spontaneously.

DS has various SEND and has just had genetic testing. Me and his dad no sign of ASC. He shows mild signs, not typical.

If you look at the Unique website you'll see how various micro changes within chromosomes are linked to certain patterns of development, whether this is speech or behaviour. These are tiny tiny changes, deletion or additions. Something like one tiny change in 200,000 bits of code.

We have also had bloods taken to see if either me or his dad has the same change in chromosome that DS has.

My siblings have blue eyes, mine are green. Inheritance does vary.

Various conditions are theorised to become active as you said. For example, I have a gene that appears in mainly viking ancestry, blond hair blue eyes, and switches off production of intrinsic element (which retrieves B12 from digested food). Switching off at age 26 or so, this means I now have to have B12 injections otherwise I would get pernicious anemia.What made it flick a switch when I was 26? Who knows. Possibly environmental. Was this then linked to CFS? Seems likely.

Interestingly on the Unique website, the leaflets (info produced from clinicians) say nothing you could have done or not done as a parent would have affected the change in chromosome. I looked at quite a few they all said this.

Which is reassuring to me (wondering if the fact I went to hairdresser and had permanent dye on hair in early stage of pregnancy before I knew, had any bearing on multiple SEND in DS).

But is it correct? Are in utero new changes to chromosomes affected by environment? Can some genes passed down be switched on and off like mine seemingly were by something - stress/environment etc.

Genes are a fascinating and intricate puzzle. Amazing really that we exist walking and talking - it takes so much code to enable us to have the innate ability to speak, and the muscles and structures to do so....which then interact with environment i.e. people communicating with us from babyhood onward. Mind boggling.

But identical twins are genetically identical!!!

In our family with identical twins one has a life threatening allergy and one doesn’t.

Not completely. As far as I understand it, genetic mutations can occur in the womb. Near as I can tell, there's a substantial (albeit not necessarily productive) difference in 15% of twin pairs.

From Autismspeaks.org

Also, even identical twins are not 100 percent genetic matches with each other, details that could only be uncovered with advanced genetic sequencing and analysis.
“Sequencing data has shown that not all identical twins are the same. Some show differences in gene copy number variation, which has shown to be important in the development of ASD, so we can’t at this point rule out variations in your DNA,” said Dean Hartley, senior director of genomic discovery and translational science at Autism Speaks.

That's really interesting. Have the twins been part of twin studies?

You could assume that something triggered the allergy in 1 twin that hasn't yet been triggered in the other identical twin yet because it would be impossible for one yo have a predisposition to allergy and the other not.

Eg in twin studies it was found when 1 identical twin developed T1 diabetes, then the other twin always did as well because of the genetic predisposition. It was just triggered in one first. It could be years in-between the first and second twin developing T1D, but it always happened.

😲😲😲 that has blown my mind. I wonder how that can happen when they are a product of the same egg and sperm?

Why isn't there a book on 'mannerisms, speech patterns, body language' to help us get it right or at least better?

There probably are.. but they wouldn't work for everyone.. we all find our own ways of coping. Staring at noses in stead of making eye contact, subtly copying the body language of people around us (women are better at this, hence it being more difficult to diagnose, we 'mirror/parrot' the behaviour of people we socialise with more) knowing when stuff is too much so excusing ourselves, stimming.. finding stims that work for us but dont scream 'notice me', finding obsessions that are more socially acceptable, like gaming, or sport.

Marc Segar's book might be worth you looking out for. It does just that.

From what I have read and observed in my own family 50/50.

Cousin has it, his sister does not, likewise nephew has it, his sister has no signs.

I don't think it's a girl/masking thing for the women in the family.

Doing genetic research around DS possible gene duplication which can mean autism, my findings so far were 50% that these could be passed to the next generation. We have an appt with NHS geneticist later in the year so will report back.

@Tinkerbot

"Why isn't there a book on 'mannerisms, speech patterns, body language' to help us get it right or at least better?"

I’m fairly sure I’m AuDHD and I honestly wouldn’t want to ‘get it right’. I think I’ve got a really good balance of masking v quirky traits. I was actually fairly popular from my mid-teens onwards because I could make people laugh and I was a bit fearless. Prior to this I was barely keeping a lid on my screaming anxiety and couldn’t understand why everyone else was so chill.

I wanted to be like everyone else so much I sort of ‘faked it till I made it’. I probably am a bit weird but I haven’t suffered from prolonged background anxiety since around the age of 16. It just disappeared as quickly as it arrived. Lots of my friends have diagnoses of GAD, ME/CFS and PMDD, which I understand are beginning to be linked with ASD.

@ProfessorPeppy interesting. I have CFS and very likely GAD and ADHD.

DS has likely autism/or traits of.

Any research links for the links? :)

Glad you find a way through and lost the anxiety!

This has turned into a useful discussion, hope we can all help each other by sharing knowledge and experiences.

@Alltheyearround

Autism and health issues: https://neurodivergentinsights.com/blog/autism-and-health-issues?rq=Auto&format=amp

Autistic burnout is a likely explanation for lots of conditions that have been attributed to autoimmune disease.

Also - and this one is REALLY interesting - the research is beginning to suggest that Parkinson’s disease might be lifelong ADHD, just the geriatric version: www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/adhd-and-parkinsons#:~:text=ADHD%20and%20Parkinson's%20both%20affect,increase%20the%20risk%20of%20Parkinson's.

Auromimmune and thyroid diseases and thyroid diseases and dementia have comorbidities too.