What Do You Think Causes Autism?

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What trauma, specifically?
Also, how does this indicate "neurological difference"? Not trying to be purposefully dense here--just not sure how you arrived at that conclusion.

I actually wish for more than one choice on this survey because I do not believe it is single cause to Autism.

1. Variance in the DNA structure.
2. Nuerological variance
3. Evolutionary step (sense the the whole human race is one genetic mutation after another)
4. Part of environmental toxins

Seem to be a lack of options in that pull.

For myself i pretty much know what caused it. I almost died at birth, because i had that birth cord, "unsure of english name" around my neck and was turning blue / purple.

So yeah i got brain damage to some extend and got autism.

^ "Umbilicus" or "Umbilical Cord"

Within the next week I’m publishing a book about my experiences with Autism and what I believe causes autism, unfortunately I live with terrible anxiety, although the book was finished two months ago, something stops me from telling people about it, until now I guess.

I didn’t add a tick to your pole as what I believe causes autism is not there.

Hospital culture created autism, at the same time woman were lead to believe having their newborn in hospitals was safe, autism also became widespread.

A clinical environment is not a natural setting for a social being like mankind to deliver their babies, we are supposed to be surrounded by family and friends. That’s the way it’s been for millions of years.
Delivering babies in hospitals and autism both came about around the same time, at the beginning of the 1900s.

Delivering babies in hospitals in the united states alone generates more than 10 billion dollars annually.

Regardless of of the safty to our health, the economy will always take centre stage.

Hospitals are a stressful environment, it's not the right atmosphere for a babie to be delivered. A natural birth worked for millions of years. It has just been proven in Britain that a natural birth at home is safer than in a hospital, the only problem is, a natural birth doesn't create much revenue.

Don't you find it strange that of all the animals and creatures on earth, we are the only ones that needs full hands on assistance with the delivery of our newborn, what happened to the ability to do it ourselves? The hospitals claimed it, for profit.

Thanks Fnord.

Hospital births are much safer where there is any potential for problems during delivery. How many mothers and/or children died in the past due to labour complications?

If you look at other comparable animals, vertebrate mammals, of the world, they are carried to a point where when born they are able to support themselves for basic requirements. The reason human babies are born at 9 months is due to the large brain size the head would not fit through the mother's birth canal if carried for longer. A human baby then still needs intensive care for many months after birth that no other animal needs.

Brain damage

I put 20 simply because it could be any or none of those reasons. TBH the Aspie community is as bad as the conspiracy theory community for dreaming up new reasons to explain Aspergers / autism.

The hospital theory is interesting, but how do you account for the difference between autistic babies and the majority of babies born in hospitals who do not become autistic?
What is the difference in autistic babies that makes then respond to the hospital environment by presenting symptoms of autism years later.

Another question to consider is the possibility that there may be autistics who were not born in hospitals How brief an exposure is required to produce autism?

I don't know which type of trauma; I wasn't born yet.
Neither my parents really know, actually.

BTW, I didn't say that the trauma indicated a "neurological difference".

Thank you

Hamburgers spiked with aspertame.

I am "agnostic" about all of these theories, though I am inclined to believe that the more plausible causes are neurological or genetic/epigenic variance,"either which may or may not be caused by extraterrestrial or neanderthal ancestry; with the genetic theory, I believe that it may be possible for the autistic gene to "switched on" due to pre-natal stress/trauma (including anoxia/hypoxia and the mother's behavior during pregnancy), perhaps early post-natal stress/trauma (which would encompass the most extreme cases of maternal indifference/neglect), electromagnetic fields, toxins in the environment and food supply, and/or heavy poisoning, all which may lead to co-morid metabolic disorders that further amplify the symptoms.

I have considered the Indigo/Crystal Child argument as well and am still debating this.

And I thought it was all those Jerry Lewis movies I saw as a kid.

I think people cause it seeing as technically it would never exist if someone didn't decide to spend their ever so valuable time studying groups of people and then proceeding to notice behavioral patterns in certain individuals and finally creating a label/diagnosis for it with a very broad spectrum of signs/symptoms.

I agree. My vote was for "genetic/epigenetic variance" as a sort of umbrella for some of the other listed causes. If enviromental factors (such as you listed) cause "autism" genes to switch on, I guess that could go under an epigenetic umbrella. I don't think it will ultimately be just one cause. I also don't think it will ultimately be just one syndrome.

The latest DSM folds Aspergers into Autism spectrum which I think is useful (discussed to death elsewhere). The original distinction was not necessarily the right place to make a divide. It seems prudent to not make any divide at this point. But when diagnostic techniques are eventually able to move away from relying on behaviour (and I think that will eventually happen), there may be new divides that come from imaging studies or DNA studies or something else not yet in use. When that happens (and I suspect it eventually will), it may turn out that some of what is currently under "autism" will turn out to actually be different syndromes with different causes, some of which may be on Fnord's list and some of which may not.