Engineer in your family?

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No, not a parent or a grandparent, but my brother is an engineer.

There is no option for "I have/suspect an ASD and yes, I am an engineer."

Both sets of grandparents were farmers and tradespeople.

Mathematics is more of an art, but sure, it counts.



"Math genes"... engineering has very little to do with having math genes. However, it seems that most people don't have a clue what math is.
I'm so tired of being in math classes where everyone else is ignorant in basic arithmetic. Even my professor has a seriously distorted view of mathematics. No wonder only 2% of math problems done in school require anything above a second level logical thought process these days. When was the last time someone actually discussed the philosophy of math in school? Most people don't even realize there are different schools of philosophy concerning what mathematics is not to mention how it is practiced. Most people don't even know what it is a mathematician actually does. My professor isn't even capable of using Euclidean reasoning to solve a problem.
I love mathematics, to bad it essentially slaughtered and then presented as a dead corpse to students - devoid of it's very essence. The curriculum is essentially a collection of unrelated topics thrown together in an complicated, irrational, and seriously outdated fashion.
In calculus, for example, the simple and profound ideas of Newton and Leibniz are discarded in favor of the more sophisticated function-based approach developed as a response to various analytic crises which do not really apply in the setting of the class, and which will of course not be mentioned - ever.

Not in my biological family, but my stepfather was an engineer.

My daughter has moderate/high functioning autism. Her father and I are "NT" (however I'm starting to think my husband may have Aspergers). My daughters grandpa was an architect and her dad is a doctor. Does the way the brain is wired for "engineers and doctors" lead to autism in their kids? Why do some kids end up severe and nonverbal?

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Father is a very successful controls engineer. He's definitely not on the spectrum.

I am an electrical engineer, and my paternal grandfather was an engineer.

My father is an engineer
I'm a physics graduate
My son is autistic

So we are a "typical" ASD family! Also my wife and her mother are very musical, which again is a trait linked with an increased prevalence of autism in the family. I think the genes that "code" for excellence in engineering, mathematics and music also play a strong role in coding for autism. This does not mean all autistic people will be great engineers but it does mean a higher proportion could be when compared to the general public. I say "could" be because often this is prevented by an education system that caters only to NT's and so autistic engineering talent is often wasted.

Music is an expression of Applied Mathematics.

Most my family are engineers

My father went from law enforcement, to trainmaster (a type of freight supervisor, which involves a lot of logistics among other things), to software engineering.

My maternal grandfather was an OSS officer in post-WWII Germany. I guess you could say that a career as a spymaster involves a certain sort of social engineering. He later worked as an air traffic controller.

Indeed. This is also why we only get genuine child prodigies in maths and music. By "genuine" I mean children who can actually perform better than skilled, trained adults. The phenomona of child prodigies only really occurs in the field of music and mathematics. They use the same parts of the brain and these skills are innate sure they can be refined and improved with learning but mathematical ability or music ability is something you either have or do not have. Everyone has some ability to some level in these areas so everyone can learn some maths or music but once you get to the point at the edge of your innate ability no amount of practice or learning can take you beyond. A fact I learned will in the final year of my physics degree when I hit the limit of my ability in mathematics! My innate talent in maths is far higher than most peoples but it was not sufficient for me to ever make a first rate phycisist. I do not think that any amount of study or work would have earned me a 1st class degree in the subject. There came a point when the maths was just not making sense to me. I could have bumbled along as a second rate physicist one but that did not appeal so other career paths needed to be explored!