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I agree with you. For all these disorders that don't currently have genetic backing, ie. ADHD, Aspergers' and Autism -- the best way to deal with them is to und

I agree with you. For all these disorders that don't currently have genetic backing, ie. ADHD, Aspergers' and Autism -- the best way to deal with them is to understand ones' inhibitions and pecularities as merely on the wide and vast personality spectrum that the brain can inhabit. Even if a person acts in all the symptomatic ways that the DSM lists for Aspergers', we can't really say that they have it for sure - we have no genetic test - so we just have to say: "well people with those symptoms, we seem to think they all have the same disorder." But its a huge IF considering that the brain and body are affected by a massive myriad of genes. There's probably a slew of different genes that can cause social inhibition and the usual markers that go along with some of these symptomatically diagnosed disorders. Ultimately, people have tendencies based on their genetics. If the tendencies are severe, we tend to say they have one of these disorders. But there is a whole spectrum of tendencies...so sticking a label on severe cases doesn't really make tendencies a binary thing. Sorry, wasn't trying to lecture. Accept yourself for your tendencies, and try to figure out the ones' you can change if you really want to...like you said, disorder label or not, doesn't really make a difference to what is a fluid and massive spectrum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_rights_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_rights_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurodiversity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurodiversity

TomK32 9y ago
Thanks for the Autism rights movement link (here I am, an old-fashioned wikipedian of 15 years and still finding new articles). I though Autism/Asperger has some genetic backing? At least the wikipedia article I link below has quite a list of candidate gene loci. Here's a quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_autism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_autism > Autism concordance in siblings and fraternal twins is anywhere between 0 and 23.5%. This is more likely 2–4% for classic autism and 10–20% for a broader spectrum. Assuming a general-population prevalence of 0.1%, the risk of classic autism in siblings is 20- to 40-fold that of the general population.
- goldenkey 9y ago
  We know many cases are genetic but don't have a definitive genetic test. Heritibility is not hard to determine even if no specific genes are known. Mendel did this with plants even before chromosomes were discovered. So we can say simple things like the odds of offspring having autism - which isn't based on a specific gene but rather the dominance/recessiveness of the underlying genetic factors computed by census/survey/sampling data. So yes, there is a genetic disease that causes neurological changes, autism - but it isn't correct to label all inward children as having that gene. Symptomatic diseases can have multiple disparate genetic causes - and we usually separate these into different diseases even if the symptoms are extremely similar.
  - AstralStorm 9y ago
    The percentages are confounded by the environment both social and physical fostered by parents. And we don't have enough separated twin studies...
    - goldenkey 9y ago
      You're right. I was just trying to tell OP that the heritibility evidence we have is not from knowing the exact genes that cause autism. It is moreso from epidemiological stats.

TomK32 9y ago

Thanks for the Autism rights movement link (here I am, an old-fashioned wikipedian of 15 years and still finding new articles). I though Autism/Asperger has some genetic backing? At least the wikipedia article I link below has quite a list of candidate gene loci. Here's a quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_autism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_autism > Autism concordance in siblings and fraternal twins is anywhere between 0 and 23.5%. This is more likely 2–4% for classic autism and 10–20% for a broader spectrum. Assuming a general-population prevalence of 0.1%, the risk of classic autism in siblings is 20- to 40-fold that of the general population.

goldenkey 9y ago
We know many cases are genetic but don't have a definitive genetic test. Heritibility is not hard to determine even if no specific genes are known. Mendel did this with plants even before chromosomes were discovered. So we can say simple things like the odds of offspring having autism - which isn't based on a specific gene but rather the dominance/recessiveness of the underlying genetic factors computed by census/survey/sampling data. So yes, there is a genetic disease that causes neurological changes, autism - but it isn't correct to label all inward children as having that gene. Symptomatic diseases can have multiple disparate genetic causes - and we usually separate these into different diseases even if the symptoms are extremely similar.
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  The percentages are confounded by the environment both social and physical fostered by parents. And we don't have enough separated twin studies...
  - goldenkey 9y ago
    You're right. I was just trying to tell OP that the heritibility evidence we have is not from knowing the exact genes that cause autism. It is moreso from epidemiological stats.