Autism and Having Kids?

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Whats the difference? I thought they both mean the same thing. I'm still a newb here kinda.

i have never had any interest in having kids.
i have none.

I'm 29 un-dx aspie. I have had 4 children.

10 yr old NT

7 yr old PDD-NOS

5 yr old profoundly autistic

Last one died at birth due to anencephaly. I'm most definitely finished having children. I love my kids dearly, but I feel like I have plenty enough to deal with at this time. My youngest requires round the clock assistance, and supervision, and probably will for the rest of his life.

So far the average is ~2.18 kids.

me = PDD-NOS
husband = NT
child = mild autism

Not going to have more children, at least biological...

Mom of three--all NT! topic

No more. I am 54!.

I have six children, 5 girls and 1 boy. The 11 yr old and the 3 yr old are on the spectrum (PDD-NOS).

Another daughter I believe could be considered a very high functioning aspie, but she has no diagnosis.

Another daughter is too young to tell.

I am AS and have one son also AS. Never had more because I left his dad and never met anyone else I wanted to have kids with. Never thought anyone else was special enough to share that AS bond with. LOL.

Until quite recently, the difference was that HFA carries with it a language delay while aspergers does not necessarily have one. In fact, often the language in aspergers is ahead (or at least more complex).

Modern thinking (confirmed directly from Tony Attwood) suggests that the two terms are now considered to be interchangeable.

b9 - good for you!

I'm self diagnosed aspi. I have never wanted kids .......what!...... after what I went thro years five to twenty five - no bloody way. I cringe at the thought of inflicting this life on another - wow this hits a sore spot.

But you're in a unique position to make sure that wouldn't happen to your kids...

Our relationship is interesting - I'm one of two husbands in a polyandrous marriage. (Only one of us can be married to her at a time in a legal sense, but in a more morally binding sense, we're one family.) I fathered our daughter, who is profoundly autistic; my cohusband fathered our son, who may have inherited his ADD (it's hard to tell, at the age of 3, whether Iain has a short attention span or is just being a typical boy toddler).

I didn't learn about AS until after my daughter was born, but my younger sister is also autistic, so it didn't come as a shock even so.

Son is DX'd as HFA.


M.

Considering that the propensity to develop an ASD is based on genetics; most people with a diagnosed condition will have a parent who is of the broader autism phenotype in the least.

If not, they tend to assume the mother is of the "hidden" type, and she passed it on [as females don't manifest ASDs as severely as males]; BAP in females will be less noticeable.

High Functioning Autism has a Language Delay, wheras Asperger's doesn't have a language delay.

Do not have children. Never felt much urge to have them when younger, or any urge for that matter. Was told repeatedly I would never amount to anything, and that is a sort of a buzz-kill, too. Life long depression and a bleak view of humanity further clouded the issue, or perhaps, neatly framed it. Had a difficult time imagining I could ever adequately care for myself, and without my wife would indeed have a very hard time of it. Most of this lifetime spent in rocky financial straits, again not conducive to child-rearing. Add in the terror of fascism, and an generally apocalyptic world view, no, no kids for me.

My wife was even more adamant on the subject. With her anxiety attacks and what I'm now pretty sure are almost daily melt-downs, it was pretty much out of the question.

On an even deeper level I always felt that having me for a father would be a lousy trick to play on a kid.

There's actually a lot more to it than that, it's just that they're more alike than not. This is from everyone; Attwood, Wing, Tantam, et al (they all agree with this).

Autism with an IQ above 75:
aloof as a child (rarely passive); aloof/passive as an adult
sensory issues (Lorna Wing reports that they aren't there in AS to a clinical amount; go figure)
"stims" (again, not there in AS to a clinical amount)
may or may not have the cerebral interest
AS:
socially passive, odd-eccentric, or overly formal/stilted as a child and an adult (never aloof)
the cerebral special interest
motor difficulties

Also, current literature states that there can be a delay in the acquisition of speech in Asperger's too, and it's best to differentiate the two by the above variables if one wants to.

Since the treatment is the same, and they overlap in the three main areas with similar severity (albeit, of a different manifestation), they see that there's no point in seperating them based on the above variables.