Can trauma from childhood cause autism?

[Rainbow03]

Someone I’ve come across has said that they had been told by a medical person that their child’s autism was caused by being fostered and the trauma.

Ive always thought it was there from birth.

Im asking because I don’t class my childhood as great. I am ND and I also have trauma from a bad marriage. I’m wondering if I was already ND and my parents constantly putting me in situations that overwhelmed me (classed as normal ND people) just caused me to feel worse.

It is absolutely true that autism can make it harder to deal with life’s difficulties, especially trauma. I’m constantly amazed at what some people can seemingly shake off or how they can just adapt.

@Ponderingwindow before knowing I thought there was something wrong with me as I don’t deal with things that easily. I still don’t really fully understand the death of my dad who how to integrate it into my life, it still feels odd.

exactly, I wonder how they are doing now? I might start a thread to ask

I’ve sometimes wondered that. Iirc some were adopted.

I work with children who have SEN - some of them have trauma, some autism and some have both. Some have undiagnosed SEN. I have learnt through training at work that there are traits of autism that overlap with symptoms of trauma. But no, actual autism is not caused by trauma.

The more i read about these things, the more desperate the situation becomes; we as society were meant to be open to people with these dyagnosises and stop vilifying them, their parents or their private lives

I keep seeing the complete of acceptance, despite all the Don't mask , banging on , going on, all the time

meant the opposite of acceptance

why it always has to be drama and abuse for every diverse or different person out there?!

There's a whole lot of "how dare you suggest we are like those defective traumatised people!" going on here. Which is still ableism.

There is what is sometimes known as 'institutional autism' which is seen among people who experienced severe childhood neglect such as survivors of Ceaucescu's orphanges. What we call autism or ADHD or even things like depression are not diagnosed by a physical criteria like a blood test or brain scan. It's a a name we give to collections of behavioural symptoms without speaking to the underlying cause. While there is good evidence that ADHD for example is highly genetic the same behavioural presentation can be shown in attachment disorders. That is why understanding full history and case context is important and I would say that the childs Dr has more of that history and context than the people on here quick to write then off as brainwashed by Gabor Mate.

@SideEyeSally I see what you mean. So that in theory, trauma could lead to a person to display traits that mean they would meet the diagnostic criteria for autism, without having autism as now is more properly understood as being genetic (but genetics not being part of the diagnostic criteria). Especially when they have experienced profound trauma in babyhood, so it could look like a developmental disorder as those traits would be apparent from early childhood.

Makes sense as there is no actual blood test or medical test. It’s kind of what I was asking really. I could have c-ptsd or autism, how do they know really when the neglect goes back to literally when I was born. I’ve probably copied a lot of my mums behaviour without realising. I struggle with relationships and intimacy, don’t really understand it. I don’t really have issues with rejection.

For me I guess a major symptom was my delayed speech ( I made up for it though) I always rushed my work at school then sat and disrupted everyone else. I’ve also picked at my lips often till they bleed but I can’t stop as it makes me feel better. I suppose that could all be anxiety based from my childhood but not so sure.

There are overlaps, people working with children have attempted to look at differential diagnosis in children who present with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. Some children will not have autism, their difficulties being explained by attachment problems. There will be a very small number of children who will have both autism and attachment problems. Some people have worked on an adult version.

drawingtheidealself.co.uk/the-coventry-grid

Trauma suffered by a NT person will not cause them to become autistic, no.

They may suffer from all sorts of other issues such as ptsd or other mental health problems, anxiety in social situations etc, but not autism. The trauma might possibly cause hitherto well-masked and undiagnosed autism in a person to become apparent, but it can't cause it.

Came here to say this

'The relationship between our genetic background and our social environment is messy. You can have a 'genes' for something (it's not quite that simple, but for simplicities sake) but the environment in which you live and grow up has a big role to play in how these are expressed/come to impact on your life. A child growing up experiencing trauma is not going to fair as well as one growing up in a loving, stable environment, and this will impact on how any predisposed genetics impact their life'

I agree with this part of this post. But take a different view to most. Trauma, indeed any stress on the body (physical or emotional) triggers ND (and/or mental health issues) in those that are pre-disposed to it (whether you call it genetic or otherwise).

It is usually a mixture of inherited gut health and environmental gut health (poor diet/lifestyle/stress). This causes changes in the brain. It's the gut/brain connection.

Backing up a PP. Sunptoms of trauma mimic symptoms of autism.

I guess it’s more easily diagnosed when you are a child as autism. As you become older like myself who is 40 it gets harder to be certain one way or another as trauma can mimic it.

From what I've learnt so far, it seems like autism is strongly inheritable. Think about your family, and your extended family too. There's probably someone there that has autism.

@EarthSight I am pretty sure my mum is. She dropped out of school at 12 and can’t really read and write great. I tried to help her when she was 50 but she still struggled. I am unsure though as she was raised by an abusive drunk father and she has always felt abandoned by her mum who favoured her sister. It’s hard to say if she is autistic or suffers from abandonment issues. She has never had friends, says the most inappropriate things and it’s embarrassing sometimes. It’s hard to know if she loves me because she has never hugged me, she just looks cold and awkward but she isn’t horrible.

I agree with the posters who have explained how there is overlap in symptoms, that trauma can present in a similar way to autism. I have some personal experience of this - DC was very ill and in ICU at 2 years and put on very strong inhibiting drugs for a year afterwards and when he came off them, nursery were absolutely convinced he was autistic and would need a special school, whereas it was trauma related, and he has now, a decade on, recovered completely and doing well in every area. This is one of the fundamental differences between the two - recovery. Therapeutic work can do wonders for both trauma and autism incidentally, but will act differently depending on which it is.

It sounds as though you want a thorough understanding and this is the lecture I watched which first convinced me that DC's symptoms were as almost certainly trauma related not autism, it is well, well worth watching all the way through if you are interested:

You mentioned something about people commenting on your parenting and your dc and demand avoidance - along the same lines as trauma/autism, you will get different groups calling things different names (or misdiagnosing) and for example, the US doesn't recognise "patholigical demand avoidance" but will advise on children ignoring or avoiding requests - for example for example ahaparenting.com is written by a clinpsych in the US and is based on 50 or so years of peer reviewed research (recognised by both the US and the UK) about child development and her advice on this topic might be:

https://www.ahaparenting.com/read/Obedience-Why-Do-You-Have-To-Tell-Them-Five-Times

And she talks elsewhere about about how important good connection and making expectations clear in relation to children following your advice and instructions etc. That was a bit convoluted - hope it makes sense!

@troubletmill thank you I will have a look at this later when the kids are all asleep.

I guess for me the problem is which is it, trauma or autism etc. I did find my childhood extremely traumatic. Whether I was ND or not I was deeply affected. My mum had a life long illness diagnosed and she was depressed etc growing up, I was very afraid of her dying she I was small. She was prone to aggressive outbursts and very controlling and always had a victim complex. We had to tread on eggshells. I remember trying to be perfect when I was not. I’ve read that this kind of relationship with a primary care giver can cause all sorts of issues.

Reactive attachment disorder is caused by trauma/neglect as a baby. Did she mean this?

@HarrietStyles sounds a lot like myself. I hate cuddles, stand there like an awkward idiot. But at the same time I really want them. Never ask for them, never got them from my mum, or now from anyone in my family. Intimacy I find too weird and too much most of the time but I know it’s normal and expected. Don’t cry in public. Don’t know how to receive a compliment. Had a nervous breakdown when I lost my dad as I didn’t know how to self soothe. Etc etc etc

This is covered in the youtube video I attached, interestingly - Kolk was one of the psychs which developed the diagnosis RAD/BPP back in the 1970s and in his lecture he talks about how thinking about this has been revised - it has been a while since I watched, but basically he says that modern thinking is that the person is suffering from trauma which is treatable and this is one of the key things - the therapy for RAD/BPP was a lifetime on drugs whereas modern thinking (helped by advances in neurology and scans) is that full recovery can be made, without drugs.