Are we born as apies?

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You have a genetic pre-disposition for it. Depending on the mix of genetics, environmental and behavioral-psycology can have a minimal to great effect on future development. This is why it is a developmental disorder.

Read the book "Parallel Play". It's one of the best written explanations of the issues anyone with AS has to deal with in school and in early life.

I also am the teacher for an Autism class (having Asperger's myself makes this an interesting job). My job is to get the kids ready for life in an NT classroom and world setting. The difference between how I help students cope with others as opposed to other non-spectrum teachers? I teach them day one that their stimming is fine and how to properly greet people regardless of stimming.

At my school, the social environment is not that structured except for the teacher teaches students, students listen, students do what they need to do. Long as my kids understand that, they seem to do very well in an NT classroom provided the general ed. teacher isn't stupid

Then how come some Autistics are diagnosed at 2?

Joe, my daughter didn't show anything obvious until she hit school. They still haven't entirely figured out what exactly is going on and she's 10. Some autistic kids are unmistakable at 2 and earlier. If I'd been more on the ball it's barely possible that my little could have been diagnosed around 4 or so. Maybe.

My parents didn't know I was Autistic until my teacher twigged that my behaviour was different than my classmates.

I have photos of me smiling and looking at the camera or photographer or someone behind the camera as a baby and a toddler, but I was an Aspie before any injections (I had social and sensory problems as a toddler).

My sister and I discuss this from time to time because we were raised by a Narcissist in a violently abusive household. She does not believe that she is autistic in any way (I beg to differ but allow her to have her own self image without argument) but she has been through a lifetime of counseling and medication for one thing after another - never quite right. We both agree we're messed up and we often wonder if we were born with issues or if the abusive childhood created the issues.

I usually hear about Aspies who have supportive families, go to special schools or get counseling or have a tutor or good, positive things. You don't hear that much about Aspies who were abused as kids in addition to having Asperger's.

I wonder if this is a topic I should create to try and draw out more of those experiences.

My son was definitely born an Aspie. He was different from the moment of birth - didn't even cry when he was born. He was calm and observing even with his first breath and his reactions from that point on were different. We've supported his differences - we homeschooled and he was never bullied or abused. He's a very nice person today, very intelligent, hyper focused on his areas of interest, kind, funny, but not independent. At 28 he's still living at home.

The vaccination theory - I had vaccinations but my kinds did not. The ultrasound theory (that having an ultrasound or multiple ultrasounds makes the baby autistic) - I had no ultrasounds with any of my 4 births. I delivered 3 of the 4 at home.

Fair point. I think I got myself sidetracked on that and missed your point.

Because they're that obvious at 2. There's no causal link or even any correlation between vaccines and autism. One study of regressive autism (since the majority of these are diagnosed when they happen) found that the rate had not changed over time, meaning that it should have gone up if vaccines triggered it. They don't. Vaccines can and do cause problems however, and it's entirely possible the vaccine you received did something, but odds are if it was anything seriously significant, it would have been identified while you were still a child.

And significant in this case means infections and other "injuries".

Did you ever think that there has been no link found between autism and the MMR vaccine because they don't want to find one?
Same with no health risks in taking Ritalin, when I clearly know what that drug is capable of. Oh hi, I'm an epileptic now.
But some parents have seen dramatic changes in their babies just days after getting the vaccine. And saying these symptoms don't show until around 18 months isn't enough.

I still believe autism is genetic but it can also be because of the vaccine. People usually say it's the seizures following the vaccine that makes the child regress. Again, I know just what that's like. It would be impossible to wean out the acquired autistic cases from the genetic ones so there is little point in being all elitist (not saying you are - it's just my choice of words) about people being born with autism being 'true autism.' Autism is an umbrella term for specific symptoms and age of onset. Doctors will never change the age of onset because they will never allow proper research into the vaccine theory.

I regressed when I was around 18 months too. Although I had the vaccine when I was five but I became less communicative from then onwards. I think my form of autism is more the sub-type pathological demand avoidance syndrome because I'm a quick and adaptable learner when I allow myself to be. I think most of my problems were caused by womb trauma anyway, even though my dad did seem to have Asperger's and my mum ADHD.

Health risks caused by vaccination are well established, and in the US families are even awarded money by the government after vaccination injuries caused to their children.

There's no particular value to hiding autism causes, when you have politicians comparing autism to cancer, or ad campaigns built on scare tactics comparing autism to a monster that destroys families or a kidnapper that steals children away. But research consistently finds that there's no increase in the rate of regressive autism over the past 30-40 years, and that the rate of autistic spectrum disorders overall remains consistent at ~1 per 110 people in any age group using current diagnostic methods.

As for children showing more severe symptoms after getting the shot, vaccinations can cause infections and other complications, which is going to stress anyone. When stressed, autistic symptoms become more pronounced and intense.

Also, Wakefield's original study included children who had displayed symptoms prior to vaccination, and Wakefield himself was involved in trying to develop and market a competitor to the MMR vaccine.

If you prefer, I could modify my statement to "there is no validated empirical research that has demonstrated any measurable link between vaccines and autism."

Similarly, there's no claim that Ritalin has no health risks. Stimulant medications do not cause a statistically higher rate of cardiac events, specifically. It still has other risks associated with it - such as lowering the threshold for seizures. It is really frustrating when people expand specific claims like "Ritalin doesn't cause an increased rate of cardiac events" to "Ritalin has no risks at all." All medications are risky to some extent, it's a matter of how risky and which risks one is most vulnerable to.



As far as I'm concerned, there's no particular reason - if acquired autism exists - to say it's less valid or less "autistic" than people who had it from birth. It may be that something environmental triggers the regression, and it may be that the regression was going to happen no matter what. But so far, the rate of regressive autism has apparently remained unchanged over the years, despite shifts in vaccinations, changes in vaccination formulas, the addition of the MMR vaccine, the removal of thimerosal, and so on.



I've tried to nail down environmental and genetic causes for my own stuff too - such as my mother got drunk once while she was pregnant with me, and she smoked throughout the pregnancy. This may or may not have increased the chances of being autistic and having ADHD (mostly having ADHD). At least I don't have any FASD to go along with it.

What's really frustrating is when a whole forum full of people begin mocking people that think there is a risk of heart attacks from taking Ritalin. Stimulants are known to increase the heart rate.

Usually when people say there is no risk in heart attacks from taking Ritalin they leave off the 'no risks at all part'.

I still stand by my view of the only reason there's no vaccine link or evidence that Ritalin causes heart attacks (and other such severe symptoms) is simply because, money. How much money would be lost if those two things were actually proven. It's like how much money would be lost by the tobacco company if they did actual studies to find out just what the Polonium 210 in the tobacco was doing.

I should show you the link with the story about a child who died months after being vaccinated. Unfortunately I didn't save the link. That kid didn't just randomly die, he got sick after the injection and it got worse and worse and doctors wouldn't admit to it and kept diagnosing him with other such illnesses.

It's interesting that people now say 'vaccine damage' when before they'd out right deny the vaccine was responsible for any illness.

Although the FDA's current research says that there's not a statistically higher risk of cardiac events (such as heart attacks), and at least a couple of posters said that they had heart problems and taking stimulants actually lowered their heart rate.

I don't think it's worthwhile to mock people for not knowing things, however. For years it's been put on the warning labels that stimulants can cause heart attacks, and I wouldn't rule out the possibility of some people vulnerable to such a risk, just as people are vulnerable to seizures. I also think that the mockery can be or turn into bullying very quickly. Plus I see no benefit in trying to make people feel incompetent.



What money would be lost? Vaccination money? Money used to treat autistic children? People already refuse to vaccinate their children because Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey have worked hard to popularize Wakefield's research, despite the fact that it's been repeatedly discredited.

One difference here is that research into links between autism and vaccines have not strictly been performed by vaccine manufacturers, while you can see the stark differences between the tobacco industry-funded research and the unaffiliated research. There should be a similar pattern with autism and vaccinations if vaccines caused autism. However, the highest profile study by anyone linked to the vaccine industry was done by Andrew Wakefield, who was discredited and barred from practice in the UK due to his unethical research.

However, the risks of lowered vaccination rates go pretty far. The fewer people who get shots the more people die from preventable diseases. That's not spin, that's known and observed data over the time since vaccinations were first implemented. One of the reasons we just don't have repeats of the influenza pandemic of 1918 because of readily available flu vaccinations.



Oh, I know these things happen. Vaccines are not perfectly safe, and then they come up with ideas like live culture vaccines - which are safer than injecting with the actual disease, but higher risk to immunocompromised people (my grandnephew can't have any live culture vaccines because his father received a liver transplant as a baby and is on immunosuppressants (shut up Firefox I spelled them correctly) which puts him at high risk just from relatively safe live culture vaccines. That is one of the worst case vaccination injuries that can happen, and vaccination is basically trading a lower chance of death from those diseases in exchange for a much reduced risk of something like this happening. Which sounds fairly cold, but I don't mean it that way. It's best if no one ever died from vaccination, but a lot more people tend to die in the absence of same. Vaccinations also lend to herd immunity, which, getting back to my nephew-in-law and others like him, also improves their survival chances even though they don't receive vaccines because of the high and potentially lethal risk to them.

But again, nothing is perfectly safe.



I've never denied that vaccines are responsible for illnesses, and I don't know when the phrase "vaccination injury" came into common usage - it's the phrase I came across while trying to find anything that would guaranteed link vaccines to autism. I'm not using it because I want to trivialize anything, but because that's easier than trying to find my own non-awkward phrasing.

Probably both for me. I often wonder what I be like if I didn't get sick as a baby. That was when my normal development declined and then I stopped making babbling sounds completely and I had a speech delay despite that I had my hearing back. My mother thinks my hearing loss and me being sick a lot because I had so many ear infections and fevers, it made my brain develop different so I ended up functionally differently.

Would I still be the way I am or just be an NT with Aspie traits? No one will never know. Even my mother had said the same but now she thinks the environment caused it. My husband thinks it's genetic and something in the environment needs to cause it. So that means someone can have the gene and not have autism. I probably had the gene and me being sick a lot caused it. Aspie traits seem to run in my family anyway.

I think we are. I also think environmental factors play a big roll in how much the aspie trait expresses itself.

Yeah but aren't most toddlers afraid of loud noise (assuming sensory issues mean loud noises?)

Twice in one week I was in public toilets and heard a parent saying to a toddler, ''we won't put the hand-dryer on because you don't like it do you?'' And my cousin used to scream at some loud noises when she was a toddler. She's 18 now, and is 100 percent NT.