Why has autism not "died out" way before now?

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Because disability is natural. I also feel that autism is essential and that the world needs people with disabilities. I don't believe in the perfect race and neither does God.

Greetings PTSmrrow. Before I reply to your comments, I want to commend you on your signature. Mine complements yours don't you think?

I sincerely agree with your assessment of the fearful and ignorant treatment suffered by the different including the autistic back in the day, and I must say the same fears and ignorance rule today, even among our own spectrum health professionals!

It is because people as observers are taught, educated & cultivated not to see ourselves in what we create (think, see and create are synonymous here).

For instance, we think about ideas and matter, and we see ourselves separate from them; we design and make objects and things, and we believe ourselves apart or different from them; we create the physics of time, distance and motion, and manufacture devices to make separate us from them.

We approach another human being, and they are as separate and distant, sometimes even alien, from us as everything else we create.

It's as if I must separate myself from what I observe in order to define who I am; in order to make real my "self"; in order to prove my existence.

It appears that we are defined by who we are not. I exist because of what I am not.

A Man, a Woman; a Jew, a Muslim; a Latin, a Black; an alien; an autistic; is not me.

It is "them" separate and distinct from I have no dominion.

It is here that I must ask you PTSmrow; Is the autistic perception the unrecognized evolution of mankind as one organism...you?

Well having trouble socializing does not mean its completely impossible to form relationships with people, I myself find I get along with unusual people, on the fringe of society types that don't really fit in...kind of like myself. But yeah some of my friends aquantinces include an ex military guy twice my age, A guy who spent a while in prison and his girlfriend, some random juggalos my brothers girlfriend and her oldschool goth mom.

So if I wanted a family I am sure I could find someone to have a relationship with and have kids and all.....but I personally don't want kids and I am not sure I want to get married either....I think its very possible I am asexual so I probably won't be having much sex anyways, I have before and it's nothing special. I imagine it would be a struggle though if i did choose that path, but it's even a struggle for neurotypicals to keep a family going.

Also regardless of if someone with AS wants their child to have it or not, if it is partially genetic there will be that chance....in which case should they have a child with AS they should be supportive and try and give them the help they need and all that while accepting them for who they are and all that.

Many genes, and many different combinations of them can make autism. We'd have found a single gene by now.

The 80% figure is the heritability of autism. It means, "On average, 80% of the cause of any given case is purely genetic." It has nothing to do with "80% of cases". If you choose a broad definition of autism that includes the barely-diagnosable kind, you get a heritability even higher--about 94%. If you choose a very narrow definition, you can get it down to 65%.

So, what we know is that autism is almost entirely genetic, and that there are some environmental factors that may interact with the genes to push people over the border into autism, or keep them away from the border. Since the environmental effect is slight, it's likely that it can make the difference only in the mildest cases--the ones where the environment can make the difference between "barely autistic" and "barely NT". It can probably also make a case of autism more or less severe, because we see identical twins with one having AS and the other classic autism, for example.

But "environment" in this case is referring to a whole lot of things, not just the stuff you might think of immediately (toxins and such). It can refer to whether you had a good connection to your placenta, whether you were born prematurely, whether your mom had certain illnesses during pregnancy (rubella is the one we know will raise the autism risk; there are probably others). Identical twins doesn't mean identical prenatal environments, and brain development has more to it than genetics. By the time you're a year old, it's probably set one way or the other, though.

Autism doesn't necessarily "run in families", though it probably can in some cases. There are all sorts of different personalities out there, and I speculate that when two NT introverts with minor autistic qualities get together, they might have an autistic child. Autism is just an extreme form of natural and healthy variations in personality that become a hindrance when present in too great of amounts.

Another thing to consider is that some cases of Autism could be cause by genetic mutation, meaning it wasn't "passed down" from their parents.

I think mine had to do with genetic mutation, I've heard that term applied to me....they did blood tests and such when I was a kid and found a genetic mutation......and they also have a little piece of my muscle tissue in a jar in some lab somewhere should they want to look at it again.

I think this is case for my brother & I. Neither parent have Autism, brother has it and I probably do too. Apparently, I have at least 2 other disabilities which mean I'm more likely to have Autism than others - no-one can explain why though.

One problem with this idea, is that no one would have been diagnosing your parents, uncles and grandparents. So it's hard to rule this out.

I was born just the other side of 1980. my son is 5. If my son was diagnosed no one above him in the family tree would have been looked at. A much more reliable picture will start to form over the next 20 years.

Another point for the OP, 1 in 100 is pretty rare. Yet ASD is very inheritable, so if we instead asked why it isn't more prevalent, the answer might be that those strongest affected are less likely to procreate. So ASD still exists on the edge, just enough to keep it around.

Jason

Here's a related question. Why hasn't intellectual disability "died out"?

I have been alone for 50 years, but I have not given up hope!
Anyway, I follow the model that it is more than just a gene, something happens to an infant ( or an embryo???) early on that turns ASDs on. It is not stright, clean linear genetics.
The same thing applies (in my hypothesis anyway) with my Crohn's disease. Or maybe the CD is related DIRECTLY to the ASD? Who knows.. But, as I said, it is non-linear.

Sincerely,
Matthew

Competitive advantage is why.
Look at Silicon Valley, when you go there there is no question there is a lot more wealth floating around. And it is generally known there is a significantly higher number of aspies there.

In societies of the past the question is could they tolerate aspies, that is not kill them. Aspies could contribute a focused special skill in the ancient past like making precision arrows, being an unusually good hunter or smelting metals. Surviving the jealousy of others could be a big risk to an aspie.

Getting a mate is an issue also, once an aspie is highly successful that can change.

I think the comparison explains it very well, as you're referring to the "dying out" aspect of it.


This has depressed me most of my life, but I think I am beginning to get used to it. In a positive sense. I no longer think there's anything wrong with me being alone. Or that I haven't worked relationships out. Or anything related to that.

All I want is a happy life. With or without a significant other. I guess I compare myself much more to many different people than other people do. It's probably because I have so many things to think about that I don't have time for a relationship.

I have also started a mental list of couples without children. There's a great problem with overpopulation and this social rule to "have kids" no matter what. You have to feel bad about yourself if you don't have kids. I am choosing my role models more wisely these days.

Well, sometimes that can be caused by things like not getting enough oxygen during the birth. But I think the big reason is that I notice that "not very intelligent" people tend to have kids and more than 1-2 of them. Maybe it is one of the few things they know how to do? It is disturbing in that once these intellectually challenged people came out of institutions they started to marry/have kids with much of the same problems the parents have. I think doing so is mean to the kids just so the parents can have a family, especially with 7 billion people already.

Some types are not genetic; some types are not heritable. Down syndrome, for example, is almost always a new mutation. The parents don't have the extra chromosome.

ID is simply the low end of the bell curve. There will always be a bell curve, and it will always have a low end. Even if people do get smarter over time (as we obviously have since Lucy and her kind), there will always be a lowest 1% of the population when it comes to academic skills. As time goes on, demands slowly increase, and the lowest 1% now might have been nearer the middle a hundred thousand years ago.

Remember that we define ID as not just being in the lowest percentiles on an arbitrary IQ test, but also having problems in daily life. And what determines whether you have problems in your daily life?--The culture around you. The expectations people have of you. The way the world is set up. An average human being, say, two hundred thousand years ago would have been quite suited for his environment; but he wouldn't be suited for ours. There are completely different demands on someone in a small hunter-gatherer clan versus an accountant living in New York City. (But on the other hand, humans are extremely adaptable, so you can't really underestimate our ability to adjust to new situations.)

But there will always be people who are on the lowest end of the range; and those are the people we'll always give a label something like "intellectual disability". If you think carefully, the solution to that problem is easy: Just change their environment to something that they can cope with. Which is exactly what we're doing--or should be doing--when we accommodate for ID in schools, homes, and at work.

Even if AS is purely genetic, a trait that doesn't affect fertility doesn't just die out easily. There are a lot of people with all sorts of health problems, mental disorder, personality disorder...etc. who get married and have kids.

I come from a long line of aspies. For my grandpa and those before him, arranged marriage helped a lot. It's the culture, everyone who could afford it must marry and make babies, whether they like it or not. My mom claimed that my dad tricked her into marrying him. My brother met his wife online. I met my husband in a software engineering class (where there were two girls in the whole class, sex ratio was high and guys were horny). There are all sorts of ways of making relationship work even for the most peculiar people. And it also helps if you're really smart or well educated, or powerful or rich. I have an uncle who has never even been to school, but he learned everything himself and climbed his way up. He was quite a successful politician and basically could choose whichever woman he wanted.

Of course there are also those people who adore the childish innocence of aspies, those who pity the less fortunate, those who want to change people, those who have strong urge to take care of people and feel needed, and those who themselves are unpopular for some reason...etc. Many of those relationship probably didn't end well, but probably could work out as well, and can probably make babies.

it is interesting to see these "heritability" percentages, with whatever grain of salt.

i always considered myself the opposite of my father, but my wife sees similarities & i'm forced to acknowledge he has some autistic traits (mine, aspie) without the component of hyperlexia i assumed was the main thing. (he was an architectural draftsman before he retired, but his obsession is gardening.) we both are extra-sensitive to colors & textures, though not with conventional preferences. i make paintings, he plants flowers. the universe of discourse i inhabit, barely exists for him.

my mother has a strong need to take care of things (people or animals) & i can see that such pairings (the socially capable with the socially inept) make a certain kind of sense. she would have had less of it to do, if he were more able to look after himself.

i myself have tended to date extraverts almost exclusively, but valued my independence too much to want anyone to do things for me. the (neurotypical) woman i eventually married is extraverted & intellectual; she is capable & expects others to be. if we had had children, we would have wanted them to live their own lives & not our dreams. i think though that reproducing their values is a big reason for people having children--& an unfortunate one.

every so often i find out about a family of eccentrics, or just of nonconformists, which pleases me greatly, & makes me wish they all were like that. but the reality is that such families are only good material for a story, while the tribe enforces its tribal goals & tribal practices with a heavy hand, even when it makes no sense.