http://www.springerlink.com/content/j3mn633l0224x711/
Of course there are many who think they know the link to autism.
So far this is the only one that I can identify with.

Looking at the anxiety that my Mother has displayed all her life, this would explain a lot to me.She also lost a 2nd child who died at just 2 days old and I was the 3rd child so you would expect that she would experience anxiety when giving birth.

Interesting notion.

I almost hope that it's wrong; if it's right, and becomes public knowledge, it will mean that expectant mothers who are stressing about things, will become even more stressed at the thought that them stressing about things might be condemning their unborn child to autism.

He hasn't said anything that could be right or wrong, he merely flags up a medical report and adds a personal anecdote. For a first post, you've done a good job of advertising your own business but damn-all else.
Hey.. I am a she!!!with a male brain!

AUTISM - NEW FINDING

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/autism-and-genetics-a-breakthrough-that-sheds-light-on-a-medical-mystery-1996221.html

Interesting reading, though it is what I have been saying for a long time now, it looks as though they are half way down the line to actually proving it.

Thanks for that

Interesting reading, though it is what I have been saying for a long time now, it looks as though they are half way down the line to actually proving it.

Thanks for that

My wife is currently doing a masters degree in ASD, I'll ask what she thinks about the link.

Interesting reading, though it is what I have been saying for a long time now, it looks as though they are half way down the line to actually proving it.

Thanks for that

To summarise is the orginal post by the OP stating that Autism is caused in the womb, whereas the new report is saying it is genetic.

My experience of people with Aspergers has led me to believe some of the behaviours are picked up by children from their parents. Should a parent be obsessive and unsociable, then the child is likely to display the same behaviour. If a parent is unsociable then they won't take their child out or their child won't meet as many new people. Obviously this is a general statement and could relate to the anxiety theory.

Proper theory will be impossible as if there are a million people with autism (random number for example) then only 100,000 will actually have it, the other 900,000 will think they have it or just want to have it for an excuse / label.

At the moment Autism is simply a name for a collection of symptoms. It is not a condition that is the same in all people who are Autistic. It could be that there are a number of disabilities under the same lable and with different causes. So don't see how any scientist or clinician can even study cause without isolating a specific kind of autism. Its a bit like saying everyone with a limp had a nervous mother therfore nervous mothers cause people to limp when only one person with a limp had the limp because his jumpy mother dropped her bag on his foot. As a mother who misscarried her first baby and who had a disability which could or could not impact on the baby's birth and the baby lying in the breech condition I don't think you could have had a more stressed second pregnancy. Indeed it is hard to think of anyone who isn't stressed while pregnant. None of my children are autistic. For the study to be valid you would have to study a huge number of mothers from conception of the baby to 4 year old and see if there was a pattern. You would have to prove mothers with autistic children were more stressed than mothers with none autistic children. This would involve a huge study of thousands of mothers.

At the moment Autism is simply a name for a collection of symptoms. It is not a condition that is the same in all people who are Autistic. It could be that there are a number of disabilities under the same lable and with different causes. So don't see how any scientist or clinician can even study cause without isolating a specific kind of autism. Its a bit like saying everyone with a limp had a nervous mother therfore nervous mothers cause people to limp when only one person with a limp had the limp because his jumpy mother dropped her bag on his foot. As a mother who misscarried her first baby and who had a disability which could or could not impact on the baby's birth and the baby lying in the breech condition I don't think you could have had a more stressed second pregnancy. Indeed it is hard to think of anyone who isn't stressed while pregnant. None of my children are autistic. For the study to be valid you would have to study a huge number of mothers from conception of the baby to 4 year old and see if there was a pattern. You would have to prove mothers with autistic children were more stressed than mothers with none autistic children. This would involve a huge study of thousands of mothers.


This is the way I see it.

There could be a genetic link to autism. However I believe a variety of factors pre-birth contribute to autstic like symptons - as sort of mask of autism.

You see and read of families with one autistic child out of several, and you see those where all the children are autisitic. Does lifestyle / factors pre-birth have an effect, as in the families with the highest occurence of autism have the lifestyle /pre-birth factors that are responsible?

The big debate is 'what is autism'. A lot of people are getting diagnosed as 'autistic' as a general term.

Can I just point out that I posted the first link in 2008 and the recent findings are just that, recent in 2010.

There is much research money that is spent on finding the cause of autism, but sadly very very little spent on supporting children and adults who have the diagnosis. Hopefully The Autism Act will change that.
Autism is a life long developmental neurological condition. The way that the brain functions in people who have autism is different to the way the brain functions in neurotypicals( non autistics).You only have to look at other family members of people with Aspergers and autism to see that there is a genetic link, but this of course does not explain the autism epidemic that we are seeing, so I also believe that environmental factors also have to be taken in to account as well as the issues that were posted in the first link.

To summarise is the orginal post by the OP stating that Autism is caused in the womb, whereas the new report is saying it is genetic.

My experience of people with Aspergers has led me to believe some of the behaviours are picked up by children from their parents. Should a parent be obsessive and unsociable, then the child is likely to display the same behaviour. If a parent is unsociable then they won't take their child out or their child won't meet as many new people. Obviously this is a general statement and could relate to the anxiety theory.

Proper theory will be impossible as if there are a million people with autism (random number for example) then only 100,000 will actually have it, the other 900,000 will think they have it or just want to have it for an excuse / label.
I cannot imagine anyone wanting to have autism.If you lived in my house you would know what I mean:help::rolleyes:

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I cannot imagine anyone wanting to have autism.If you lived in my house you would know what I mean:help::rolleyes:

Sadly like ADHD it is used an as excuse for poor childhood development. It is seem by some as a way of getting extra support and money, instead of actually addressing the issues that have caused the autisitic like behaviours.

I say this in the nicest way possible. I understand there are many people with autism and autisitic children who do a fantastic job and would never dream of using it as an excuse. There are however some people who instead of addressing their own faults are quick to label their child as autisitc or ADHD in a bid to 'pass the buck' for one reason or another.

Sadly like ADHD it is used an as excuse for poor childhood development. It is seem by some as a way of getting extra support and money, instead of actually addressing the issues that have caused the autisitic like behaviours.

I say this in the nicest way possible. I understand there are many people with autism and autisitic children who do a fantastic job and would never dream of using it as an excuse. There are however some people who instead of addressing their own faults are quick to label their child as autisitc or ADHD in a bid to 'pass the buck' for one reason or another.

I do believe that although co morbid conditions, adhd and autism are different in that some of the difficulties associated with adhd can actually be very well controlled by diet and exercise.
If the issues that have caused the behaviour is a neurodevelopment one ,then the parents can only learn better ways of supporting them and teach schools better ways also.

To summarise is the orginal post by the OP stating that Autism is caused in the womb, whereas the new report is saying it is genetic.

My experience of people with Aspergers has led me to believe some of the behaviours are picked up by children from their parents. Should a parent be obsessive and unsociable, then the child is likely to display the same behaviour. If a parent is unsociable then they won't take their child out or their child won't meet as many new people. Obviously this is a general statement and could relate to the anxiety theory.

Proper theory will be impossible as if there are a million people with autism (random number for example) then only 100,000 will actually have it, the other 900,000 will think they have it or just want to have it for an excuse / label.

My bold - What experience would that be?

as regards the genetic link and learned behaviour: my dad has aspergers and adhd, I didnt meet my dad until I was 23, yet I have aspergers and adhd, my children all went to playgroup 5x a week minimum, to ensure they were socialised as much as possible, they all have an asd diagnosis. I do agree to some extent about stress in the womb in our case, my eldest has moderate to severe autism, dyspraxia, dyslexia and add, wen I was pregnant of 3 mths, my mum died, my partner left me for my best mate, and I had to move to the house I'd just bought for us, all in the space of the week, the stress during the pregnancy was immense and he is most certainly the worst affected, thats my experience.

as regards the genetic link and learned behaviour: my dad has aspergers and adhd, I didnt meet my dad until I was 23, yet I have aspergers and adhd, my children all went to playgroup 5x a week minimum, to ensure they were socialised as much as possible, they all have an asd diagnosis. I do agree to some extent about stress in the womb in our case, my eldest has moderate to severe autism, dyspraxia, dyslexia and add, wen I was pregnant of 3 mths, my mum died, my partner left me for my best mate, and I had to move to the house I'd just bought for us, all in the space of the week, the stress during the pregnancy was immense and he is most certainly the worst affected, thats my experience.

That certainly sounds like you had a very difficult experience.
I remember being quite stressed as I was having a caesarean section and I panicked as I could feel the incision so I had to be put to sleep in the end.

At one time all children with aspergers were said to be caused by parental abuse. Nervous mothers are now being blamed. There seems to be some kinds of Aspergers that are genetic. Some seem to have been caused by difficulties at birth. Medical history is full of doctors blaming the patient or the parent when they can't come up with an answer. As a chronic ME sufferer who was labled histerical etc., I feel quite cynical of so called research claiming an answer especially when my knowledge of research methods says quite clearly that this particular article is very bad science. To do any research you need a control group, that is people who do not have aspergers and their birth story etc.. so you can compare with those with aspergers and then you can look for a pattern. You would then need to study a large sample of the pregnant population through till the child is four and then again look for a pattern. You would need others to run studies to see if the pattern repeats to eliminate experimental bias. A good study would take several years as it would need to be repeated several times. Please don't think you are to blame at all for your childs condition. I cannot think of anyone who doesn't panic at some time during labour.

Personally, I dont believe in the anxiety during childbirth idea as being a cause.
It has to be something more than that as we have an autism epidemic. It is almost certainly genetic, but that wouldn't explain the rise in the rates of children and to some extent adults with autism.

If one looks at the family members of children with autism, one would see a link, maybe the Father, Mother or maybe an Aunt or an Uncle with the same traits.
But I am certain that there ate other environmental factors that need to be considered also.

I think its like dyslexia. Not all people with dyslexia are identical. Dyslexia is an abstract processing problem. Some dyslexics disability stems from an obvious brain injury, others are genetic. Some will improve with colour filters, others with specialist teaching, and some will always have a problem. They all have difficulty reading letters and numbers but the neurological problem can be very different. My lecturer told me it was like there are several gates to go through to get to understanding a word. Some people might get through 1 gate and then find the rest locked, some might get through to the last gate and then find it locked and others somewhere in between but all can't do the task.
I suspect that aspergers is similar in that there is a locked gate somewhere but the cause and where the gate is will vary. Some will have a problem due to a family gene, others due to a development problem in the womb which is not yet understood, and some may even have a problem caused by some external enviromental factor due to a sensitivity there (eg like asthma, you may have asthmatics in your family but not everyone in your family is asthmatic) In order to work this out you would need to find out what parts of the brain are involved and then categorise the kinds of aspergers you get. Then you can start looking at the causes otherwise you are just plucking ideas out of the air.