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I noted earlier that a friend of mine is an ABA therapist and has been working with autistic children for over 20 years. He once told me that I was in what he

by junto 12y ago

I noted earlier that a friend of mine is an ABA therapist and has been working with autistic children for over 20 years. He once told me that I was in what he termed 'a risk group for having a child with autism'. I was taken aback and he went on to explain that while there is no hard and fast rule, it had been noted that there was a prevalence of fathers with particular types of job, namely engineers and computer scientists, amongst the fathers of the autistic children they cared for. Often the fathers (and on rare occasions the mothers), were also 'within the same spectrum', even if it just manifested itself as social introversion or 'geekyness'. In retrospect I imagine this isn't often discussed with the parents since throwing 'genetic blame' around isn't exactly productive and it is widely believed that there is no singular 'cause of autism' anyway.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
colomon 12y ago
My son has been diagnosed with Asperger's, and after learning more about it, it is painfully clear that both I and my wife and several other close family members have many of the same traits, just not extreme enough to be a "problem". That is to say, the official DSM-5 definition of autism includes "Symptoms cause clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of current functioning." I definitely feel like I share many of the traits, but they just make me socially awkward rather than significantly impairing me. So I'll be shocked if there doesn't turn out to be a very significant genetic link. I suspect difficulties so far in finding it have to do with lumping too many people in as "autistic" while excluding too many people who are "sort of autistic." The classes still need a better refactoring. :)