To think autism gets worse with each generation

[eastereggg]

Genuine question.

Why does it seem that autism gets worse with each generation?

Example: a mother is a late diagnosed autistic but her child is very clearly autistic and displays much more severe characteristics than she did. The grandmother would probably be diagnosed autistic today as well.

There seems to be a recurring pattern that I'm seeing where autism is getting more severe with each generation. Is there an explanation for this?

The environment is harder to cope with now, combined with autistic people finding it easier to communicate with other autistic people so genetic causes are often heightened due to both parents passing genes on whether or not diagnosed.

Genetic mutations in terms of ND conditions generally happen preconception. There is no evidence supporting an idea that someone can develop autism part way through life due to "brain mutations". Yes lacking oxygen or being exposed to toxins during critical periods of brain development (again mostly neonatal or prenatal) are thought to have an effect although I understand this may be more associated with ADHD than autism (?) - I am a bit fuzzy on the mechanism but I'm fairly sure it's still not that it's actually causing the brain to mutate - it's more that important bits of typical development don't happen in the normal way.

You're either autistic or not autistic - it's a lifelong thing. If you have it, you have always had it and always will. It's not a disease and it's not progressive. That's pretty well established.

Vaccines have such a vanishingly small chance of triggering something like that, partly because it's not thought to be something which can be "triggered" but also because all the various things which they are accused of containing are in such miniscule amounts many times lower than the safe amount - they are also present in lots of other things in higher amounts. It's easy to go after vaccines because nobody likes taking their baby to be jabbed because it hurts them. But it's mostly nonsense. The main (and still very rare) risk from vaccines is allergic reactions, which are serious but have nothing to do with autism.

Have you looked at the SMI flow chart? You have to evidence every part of it.
We had a fight for it despite getting a blue badge for our son with no issues.
We had to throw everything we had from police reports, camhs, school, paediatrian, psychologist. Basically everyone that was involved. This was a child at 7 years old wasn't allowed to attend school if he wasn't on a 2:1 (2 staff members) ratio that day.
Still ended up at tribunal

There is far more advanced research out there than what the NHS put’s on its website. I think new research takes many years to filter down to public services, decades even.

Not disputing your info at all, just saying the NHS isn’t the pinnacle of knowledge.

Not physical boundaries but behavioural ones. Lots of children are never told no.

In the past the low functioning people were hidden away, the high functioning called : a man of few words, quirky, misanthrope and the like

Exactly

I think Darcy from Pride and prejudice is clearly autistic

@WhatterySquash I have throughout my posts conceded that I do not have the correct language to effectively and articulately describe my observation that there are ND people who are certainly not what I would call ' defective ', as in something went wrong.

I am in no way as an NT person offended at all by my belief that someone like Eminem or my son actually is significantly 'superior' in ability, skill,creativity than me and many NT people. I used the word superior, possibly incorrectly,simply to stress that point.

The impact of diet on genetic expression is very fascinating. I'm open to learning more here. But I am cautious if one goes down the diet causes autism line. It does remind me slightly of the 'refridgerator mother' theory. I'm conscious that as a society we have a habit of blame and diet =autism is in my view incorrect.

are two people with autism more likely to marry?
if you are quirky would you seek another quirky person?

Ugh. This is like asking why so many people are left handed or gay these days. Nothing has changed except visibility for the previously invisible, unwanted people.

It’s also a much more difficult world for people with ASD now. Busier, noisier, brighter. Much higher social expectation. Everyone has to have automatic access to you. A nightmare.

Many people struggled greatly trying to hide their autistic traits for a long time, to appear normal as there was no other choice.

The terms high and low functioning are being phased out.
They are very unhelpful for the most past and are also incorrect for the majority of autism presentations.

Somebody you might class as ‘low functioning’ could be happy as you like, loving each day and yet someone who you might think of as being ‘high functioning’ could find it extremely hard to cope with day to day school life, home life etc and yet be verbal and extremely intelligent.

High and low really don’t fit the majority of autistic people and many are offended by the terms, as they’re very all or nothing terms.

My husband works in the field and he has observed this with some families. The benefits that come with very disabled adult children with autism support the entire household and are very reluctantly given up, when actually sometimes the person with autism could be doing a lot more outside the home eg day centres, even volunteering, taking public transport but that would involve some loss of benefits and is resisted tooth and nail by the parent(s).

Back in the 50s 60s and before people with severe autism would have been locked up in institutions along with people with down syndrome and those who had children out of wedlock. Therefore they wouldn't have chance to have children of there own. Also in my.own familys case my child is being tested for autism and is already diagnosed with Adhd but as I was an 80s child that was just naughty kid syndrome when I was at school

Indeed we have had a few great PA,,s
My son can walk for miles SMI, isn't anything to do with a,physical inability to walk I had a ton of evidence and my son goes to a school for children with severe to profound learning disabilities ,
I know it's daunting but going to a tribunal was worth it imo.

Lots of children played out from a very young age and certainly didn’t have their behaviour monitored in the way they do today.

For the new study, researchers examined gene expression in 11 cortical regions by sequencing RNA from each of the four main cortical lobes. They compared brain tissue samples obtained after death from 49 people with ASD against 54 controls individuals.

While each profiled cortical region showed changes, the largest changes in RNA levels were in the visual cortex and the parietal cortex, which processes information like touch, pain and temperature. The researchers said this may reflect the sensory hypersensitivity that is frequently reported in people with ASD. Researchers found strong evidence that the genetic risk for autism is enriched in a specific group of genes expressed in neurons that has lower expression across the brain, indicating that these correlated RNA changes in the brain are likely the cause of ASD rather than a result of the disorder.

One of the next steps is to determine whether researchers can use computational approaches to develop therapies based on reversing gene expression changes the researchers found in ASD, Geschwind said, adding that researchers can use organoids to model the changes in order to better understand their mechanisms.

Why could this possibly be?

Very disabled children who can volunteer and and get public transport wouldn't be disabled enough to get the highest rates of mobility it's laughable your husband thinks they would
I suggest he should look into a carer change becsuse he clearly had noises has he's talking about

During the course of my childhood, one kid got hit by a train on a railway. Another one got ran over by his own mother and ended up in a coma with one leg shorter than the other.
Two people fell in the lake that was on the news not so long ago because Four kids drowned when they fell through the ice - those two people didn’t drown but they got stabbed in the stomach by a rusty old car that was in the lake. I personally don’t know how I’m here because I fell off a garage roof.
My sister was sexually assaulted aged three in the local playground.
All whilst the parents were sat in the kitchen having a fag and a cup of coffee.

Ahhh the good old days of less supervision

Yes the amount of vaccines babies and very young children are given must surely be a concern.
But anyone expressing concerns is immediately deleted. Isn’t it strange how this cannot even be discussed.

People are talking about autistic kids having done better when more of childhood was spent outside. Some of them no doubt did, but I think another factor to take into consideration is that bolters are probably more likely to survive childhood now than they would've done further back in time.

In my extended family, we've quite a wide variety of autism. There are DC who definitely would do better with more outside time. There are a couple of others who are bolters, and who aren't safe outdoors or anyone not contained, without a 1 to 1 and sometimes not even then. It would only be the last couple of generations of my family where this sort of ratio and input could've been afforded. We were all dirt poor until not too long ago, certainly couldn't have spared adults to watch kids constantly to keep them safe until maybe the mid 20th century.

I wonder how many aunties and uncles of today's 1 to 1 ratio kids were autistic bolters back through the centuries, but never lived very long until we stopped being subsistence labourers and then childhood moved more indoors.

Eugenics is already practiced today in the NHS. It's clearly not that big a deal anymore.

It's more likely that you only notice when it's that way. Most of the time it seems late diagnosis is brought about because a child is diagnosed first then the parents realise they have traits.
If the child was not autistic or if it was so minor that it was diagnosed later then the parents would not ever be diagnosed.

And if an adult was severely autistic they might be less likely to have a child so wouldn't know if their child would be more or less autistic.

I'm not sure if I'm explaining this well.

I'm trying to say that when things follow the pattern you describe there is more likelihood of diagnoses.
When it follows a different pattern ie. Parent is more obvious than child then you wouldn't notice