My Mum and I were discussing the causes of Autismas we know that some are ginetic, and had autism been known about in the past several direct family members I would say would be classed as autistic or boarderline autistic such as my Mum, my Dad, (Who I would say both were on the spectrum but from opposite ends of the spectrum if that makes sense), my Aunty, My Grandmother on my Mums side (Definately!) Mums cousin, my brothers and definately one of my nieces (Though brother doesn't believe he or she is as he knows his ex. partners girl was diagnosed with ADHD so he thinks this is autism, and knows he is not like she was so thinks he is not autistic... (He does not realize some of his traits such as apart from taking his kids to school every weekday along with shopping for essentials and his intense interest in electronics and radios He is into ham radio) he is very much an introvert and in some ways more than I am!) So though I am the only one diagnosed (Waiting for official paperwork to see exact details) and neither of my brothers know of my diagnosis yet),I can definately see the family connection with the condition.
But going back to something my Mum said recently as I had said about the rarer cases of autism caused by head injuries in road traffic accidents because autism relates to brain connections that do not make the connection in the frontal area of the brain and I was discussing about brain development from a baby in its Mums woumb onwards and how if growth is hampered in one area it diverts extra brain growth to another which explains both why some autistically minded people can be geniuses in some areas but the opposite in others, and also explains hyper-sensitivities...
And my Mother mentioned about a practice they started using regularly around the 1950's onwards which they have stopped doing today but all has gone quiet about it... As if they don't want people to catch on that it could have caused a problem, and this was using forceps to assist in child birth.
Now no one blames anyone for this because any assistance with childbirth for mothers is very much welcome along with the staff helping the birth in these circumstances... But as my Mum said, forceps were used to pull the babies head and I mentioned that babies heads are soft as their skulls had not developed into hard skulls at that stage in a persons life. So potentially the use of forceps would very much have the possibility of damaging the frontal area of the brain, thus causing autism in the few cases that autism has not been passed down the family lines.
Now we are no experts. We were just discussing theories here. And I know about a year or two ago that though pretty obvious if one thinks about it, but to the officials in healthcare no one really thought about it until it was recently discovered, that many blind people since birth may be on the spectrum, and from what I understand a study is being arranged to find out if this theory is true. If it is true, the say that many traits that people associated with the people being blind were not because they couldn't see, but were because they were on the spectrum! They estimate that if it is found to be true, that an estimated 80% of those who have been blind since birth (Those who have fully developed eyes and connections to the eyes but still are blind or partially sighted) are likely to be on the spectrum. A real eye opener when it comes to a whole group of people they didn't realize could be autistic! (I think they mentioned 60% of all blind or partially sighted people have been blind or partially sighted since birth, so it is 80% of those who are of these 60% if that makes sense. It is still potentially a lot of people and trying to sort out thenatural traits of being blind from the traits of autism is another complication that they will need to look into).
The exact causes of autism can vary from one to another if there is no hireditory connection, but I wonder if the use of forceps at birth has been thought about.