question about autism/aspergers

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so, say someone had high functioning austism or aspergers, and had a very sociable NT sibling as well as parents (but one parent had the AS genes). if the AS positive person had kids with an NT, would the sociable outgoing genes be passed onto the kids?
so what im saying is is AS just a personality thing? or could someone with it be social, if it werent for having it?
i hope that made sense.

I am not sure whether I understand you correctly, but I'd say if someone with AS genes and someone with NT genes mated, it would depend on which genes from which parent are passed on and which are dominant,w hether the child would be AS or NT. Also it would depend on whether just one gene could make someone AS or it'd require multiple mutations (which is more likely).

sorry, what i was trying to say was really hard for me to figure out how to say. XD. so i dont know if it makes sense.

like would someone with AS genes be NT if they didnt have them? like is their personality very social and stuff, just the AS is preventing it? or is the AS just their personality?

Having AS means your brain functions differently than the NT, in several ways, but most noticeably (from the external viewpoint) in the social arena. That means when you look at an MRI of the autistic brain doing the same task as an NT brain, you would see different areas reflecting the most activity at that moment.

Which is to say, the task is routed through a different series of wiring than it is in the NT brain. Because of that, the autistic literally experiences life slightly differently than an NT person does. We have a different perspective that is simply a physical part of us - therefore, to a great extent the personality of the Autistic is formed by his/her autism. It isn't everything we are, we're influenced by our environment and the events and influences in our lives as much as anybody else, but if I understand your question correctly, no, AS is not PREVENTING an Aspie from being social, it forms the core of the tendency to not understand how to be social (or at least, to be clumsy and awkward at it).

We are that way because we (dys)function socially though an alternate set of wiring than the standard-issue set. AS isn't BLOCKING normal social function. Its creating a different means of dealing with social functions. Hope that makes sense.

If someone with AS didn't have AS genes, they'd be a completely different person. Their brain would be built differently. Who can say how they'd turn out?

As for the heredity question: Having AS doesn't guarantee whether or not you will pass on your AS to your offspring. It just throws the possibility into the mix. I have a perfectly neurotypical daughter. My neurotypical sister has 3 kids and one is diagnosed ADHD, but I think she's an Aspie, too. So you might have a gaggle of NT kids, or you might get lucky and have an Aspie child to carry on your special quirks.

Last edited by Willard on 20 Sep 2009, 2:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Wow...Epic reply. A* for the day. thanks.

Much of the time, but not always, and certainly to varying degrees. You can't, for instance, look at someone's fMRI and diagnose them on the spot with autism. There's a very fuzzy gray cloud running between AS and NT, and no one really knows where the borders are.

AS is not a personality. As to your questions about being social, many people with AS are socially inclined.

Sociability is a personality trait unrelated to being Aspie or NT. However, being on the autistic spectrum can mean that you have difficulty expressing your sociability in ways that society accepts, and so you might be forced to have more of a loner life because you are not socially accepted. Or you could find a social group that welcomes people who are different or 'weird', and then you can express your sociability freely.

Hi Spazzergasm, - Posterior probability linkage analysis points to chromosome 16, but Bayes Theorem has problems in regions of outliers in data sets. Using the Aspergers Outlier Models, I would regard my over-use of reductio ad absurdum logic to be a sign of Aspergers, but it would also lead me to search for the genetic combination that determines the degree to which a person believes in genetics. When I find the genes that cause a belief in genetics, I would discover that genetics is of no utility and that a disbelief of genetics is of more utility. If I find the genes that cause me to disbelieve in genetics, I would then know that genes could not have caused my search, therefore, any disbelief in genetics disproves genetics, as my obsession with genetics proves. That's why the square root of the number 2 is called irrational.

I think you're confusing AS with introversion.

I wasn't suggesting that you can diagnose autism from an MRI, just that MRI results comparing the two brains would be visibly different.

Presuming AS is caused by genetics and you knew what genes are involved (and if they connect to other genetic traits), I suppose you could calculate the odds of AS being in the child, but anything more than that is speculation. I guess they could test for a gene marker someday to see if a fetus will have AS or autism.

Hello,
My husband and I are both very social, and so is our AS child. He is outgoing and loves playing with other kids, as long as they play the game he's chosen
Best,

Genes are a weird thing. See I've got Tourette syndrome which is apparently genetic, yet none of my (living) family have the condition. On the other hand, I have been told that it is likely in my case that my mum and dad were both 'Carriers' of the TS gene and that the both of them combining together made me... Twitchy McGee (Why do I call everything McGee?) Also, you can get babies born with their grandparents or great grandparents features like eye colour, hair colour etc. I'm not sure how likely it is for my AS to be passed on genetically though because there does seem to be a heck load of it in the family...

I've heard many claims of the genetics that are partially responsible for AS (there may be/are other factors involved than just genetics) thare also involved in Tourette's.