Do you think one or both of your parents have autism?

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In retrospect I think it's highly likely that both my parents were somewhere on the spectrum. We hardly ever socialised or had visitors to the house. Of course that suited me fine so I didn't think about it at the time. My brother on the other hand was out making friends almost as soon as he could walk.

nope but both parrents could pass as marginal OCD

My dad is a lot like me, but he's in his eighties and really doesn't want to discuss it. His father was that way inclined as well.

I believe my father is AS

I and one of my brothers have Aspie traits, although my brother hasn't been diagnosed.

I really don't know about my parents. One of them might have had some sensory issues, and the other certainly came from a family with very high mathematics ability. Obviously, if both I and my brother have Aspie traits, I would expect that one or both of my parents would have been at least a "carrier" of Aspie genes, and might possibly have been BAP themselves. Perhaps they were both mildly BAP, and had two sons who were more intensely Aspie than they were. Don't know. Must ask a family member who can remember my parents AND who understands enough about Asperger's syndrome to give a useful answer.

My mom probably has both Asperger's and bipolar disorder (though she won't admit anything is wrong). Her father was diagnosed with schizophrenia and a personality disorder, and her sister has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I have a first cousin diagnosed with ADHD and another first cousin diagnosed with PDD.

I am very confident that my brother has Asperger's, but he has not been diagnosed. (He is 37--too old to have been identified by the public school system).

I don't think either of my parents are autistic. I do think my brother has AS though and I have a strong suspicion that my mother's brother had it too.

Dad probably had AS. Reclusive, intense special interests, poor grasp of social stuff and emotions, unusual eye-contact, talking past the point, seemed to be running thought-out scripts rather than being "immediate," lots of routine in his life, hard to get him interested in anything he wasn't already interested in. Always explained things in great detail and with extreme attention to clarity.

Mum - possibly, but there's little hard evidence. Had something like a meltdown if she got home to find anything had been changed in her absence. Great difficulty handling interruptions - would typically try to divert attention from main task, get stressed out, make a mistake, and get angry. Often slow to reply when asked anything, as if there was some processing difficulty. Semi-reclusive - most of her friends were relatives.

My Dad - Autistic
My Mum - possible Aspergers

Me Aspergers & slightly autistic
My son Asperger
His dad defo Aspergers

I would say my dad shows some Aspie traits but definitely not my mum though.

I am 90 percent sure that my mom and dad have autistic traits, probably both diagnosible. I would like to find and use gold standard checklists with all the members of myfamily and seek social support and diagnoses. I have read 40 books on autism in about as many days--my new special interest--hehe. It has been fun to note broader autistic phenotypes (BAPS) in my mom, dad, grandmother, aunts and uncles, step-dads, step grandees, and my wife. We laughed at our amateur diagnoses knowing that the rate of autism is only 1 percent in the world, so it is unlikely thaty entire family has it. But the more I read, the stronger the signs become. Even so, we still laughed while we noticed and thought.

Now, I have found some information that turns up the seriousness a notch. Maxine Aston says in "asPergers in love" (2003) that women express autism much differently than man. And now, if my mom, grandmother, and wife looked like they had it before, they really look like it now! Women with AS tend to have expressive voices. They learn to copy social behavior at a young age. They tend to search for meaning and completeness by changing ( in some cases adhereing to, which may look normal but still have odd characteristics) spouses, careers, religions, countries. This describes all 3 of these women in my life. Whereas men with AS tend to seek NT partners, women with AS almost always seek partners with AS. That helps explain the BAPS I see in my dad, step-fathers, and step grandfathers. Now, I am certainly not delusional. I still recognize the great odds, but I am starting to see my entire family ( and thus developmental universe) on the autistic spectrum. How does that effect a child with ASD?

It's hard to say because both my parents are uneducated and they both would never go to a psychiatrist/psychologist for diagnosis. I suspect my mother might have AS while my dad is more of an introverted type with mild social anxiety. I kinda feel like I got a bit of both.

I guessed my biological father. My mother may have some traits, although I doubt she is. My father, though, is eerily like the "Denial and Arrogance" description in The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome:

This is why I haven't spoken to him in 15-16 years. I still don't know what he thinks I did. He cut my aunt off for similarly odd reasons. (I've talked about having an abusive father growing up - not this guy. He wasn't abusive, just brittle. My biological parents were never married).

Anyway, that, he went into accounting and was really good at it. Had obsessive interests (computers specifically when I got to know him), didn't understand things like why I did not want to be photographed at a wedding and how freaked out I got when he chased me with a camera. Hmm, yeah. Stuff like that.

I talked to my mother about this and she agrees he has some AS traits. Still, it is difficult to actually say what someone might have based on a few paragraphs in a book, but the similarities to Attwood's description are extremely close.

My mum shows some slight autistic traits, such as obsessional behaviour, reluctance to socialise/underdeveloped social skills (although English is one of her 4 languages...she's fluent, better spoken than many who live here, but the English culture is just different, so it might just be that), excellent concentration abilities, but she could never be fully blown autistic. She's too 'there' for that. But that side of the family is a little atypical neurologically anyway. And the other side, actually, but my dad is normal as anything.