Theory of aspergers Gene!

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ok let me clarify, I am the only one diagnosed. But I became obsessed with figuring out every little detail of almost everything that I become interested in. lately, that thing has been my family.

I am looking only back to my grandmother on my mothers gene line and down to the Gen after me. I observe beyond my own comprehension( not trying to sound cool, it drives me insane). If aspergers gave me a gift, it would be science. science of anything. as one of my friends put it simply, he said " It's like your existence is solely to figure things out".

I have realized the bigger picture. so let me say this, these are traits I have noticed, I do strongly believe they are somewhere on the spectrum, you can argue, but I would like for you to read this and possibly help me clarify.

grandma- is highly intelligent at times, other times she acts infantile. she stares, she obsesses she does math in her head at incredible speeds, and yet she is so far gone you can't really talk to her.

mom -perfectionist, Doesn't make a lot of eye contact, one sided conversations, can't talk in group situations, has a nervous tick, comes off as rude, obsesses over things she doesn't like.

uncle larry- lack of eye contact, monotonous vocal tone, can't hold jobs,compulsive, has two children, one supposedly mentally ret*d( I believe and have tested my theory he has low functioning autism), the other seems to have aspergers.

Aunt-Obsessive, has frequent meltdowns, been admitted to loony bin a few times, never had a long term job,gets stuck on things and repeats.

Uncle Richard- Diagnosed with Mild mental retardation,compulsive,doesn't notice subtle vocal discrepancies, obsessive/gets stuck on things.

Me-Obsessive,Eye for detail and patterns in every aspect of life,used to have frequent meltdowns,had to learn eye contact, poor social skills(beyond Good at faking), sensory problems, depression, Diagnosed aspergers.

Sister 1-Obsessive, Good with art/drawing/painting, loner, sensory issues, depression, meltdowns, diagnosed with ADD.

Sis 2-Lack of common sense, lies, but bad at it,very book smart, good with English/writing

Nephew 1- smart good social skills, likes school , lots of friends.son of sis 2

Nephew 2-Frequent meltdowns,Obsessive,Good with math, poor at reading vocal tones, shutsdown/zones out, ADHD, his school acknowledges he may be on the autistic spectrum. son of sis 2



My findings from my observation are limited and are as follows. keep in mind this is a rough theory and nowhere near conclusive or final. Autism is linked genetically, although it is hard to determine if it is from one gene or multiple. I can not yet determine whether or not it is predominately passed through men or women. What I am sure of from anecdotal evidence Is that Autism seems to show up for 4 consecutive generations in my family. In those 4 generations it seems there is a .0175% per generation for there to be low functioning autism.

well that's all I have so far, and I am currently thinking about tracing my ancestry to see when these traits seemed to become more prevalent.

please feel free to ask questions and help me my theory, and determine whether or not my family might be a good candidate for scientific research regarding autism. so yeah, ask yourself what diagnoses these traits fit. I don't believe Nephew 1 is anywhere on the spectrum.

It runs in my family too. My Mom has many Aspie traits and my younger brother (I know hes an aspie we just dont discuss it, hes not open to it. Also I know one of his daughters has it but, like I said, no discussion). We think that both my Mom's parents had Asperger's. My older brother also has many traits but is very social. I have five children, two aspies, one autie, and one, my 22 year old, that has a bi polar, autism, drug addiction mix. My second daughter who is 20 is basically NT with some anxiety issues. I have been Diagnosed with Asperger's.
I agree its very genetic. My husband is a biologist and he just got accepted in a Professors position in France to teach genetics.....he hopes also to collaborate with some guys up in Orleans, France that are doing Autism research. My husband is very intelligent and obviously also has some Aspie traits....I call him my Halfspie. I tell him if he wasnt at least part way aspie he wouldnt "get" me and the kids as well as he does. He has no problem with reading social cues and very little anxiety, but he is a serious geek .

that's good to hear. I'm tired of the current lack of knowledge about links to genetics. I'm tired of reading sources that say, there may be a link, instead of, there is a link. I don't know enough about biology to study this matter further, but I think i noticed my family traits due to being obsessive as well as noticing things genetic, I was an 'A' student in my Biology and science classes in high school. I believe there is a lot to be learned from studying family's that seem to have a high accumulation of people on the spectrum. Maybe all the favored aspie or HFA traits could be isolated someday , and then we could have the advantages of science,math,art, without the obsessing,anxiety,ticks...think the movie Gattaca was onto something

There are a lot of families like yours, with many members who have autistic traits. In my family, there are more autistic people than non-autistic. I'm pretty sure both my parents could be diagnosed; my half-sister also has some very strong traits (she's not diagnosed because my mom won't take her to see a doctor--she's into alternative medicine). One full sister is non-autistic but introverted; my half-sister's father is non-autistic. So that makes two non-autistic, three autistic.

Current studies show autism spectrum disorders to have a heritability somewhere in the 90-95-percent range. (That is, in any given case, on average, 90-95% of the cause will be genetic; the rest will be due to factors other than the DNA you got from your parents, like new mutations, prenatal environment, etc.) Specific autistic traits aren't nearly as heritable; so you might have one identical twin with Asperger's and the other with classic autism. Then again, since the specific sub-categories don't have much of a degree of reliability as diagnostic categories, that could just be a reflection of the way ASD sub-categories are messed up in general.

I know these waters have been tread before, but what I want to research, is the possibility that people with aspergers are just a natural variation that may be part of nature. like ants for instance, you have your queen, your soldiers, your grunts ect...

I just can't help but look at things like Mayan temples, pyramids, Greek architecture and think... Aspergers. seems to be that the smartest people throughout history were scoffed at, and categorized as having disorders. but then again the people pointing the finger were the less intelligent.

wow I'm getting off topic, might have to start another thread lol. btw keep throwing in input readers, I like what I'm seeing.

I have family members with differant things. Dad seems to have aspergers traits. My uncle (dads brother) seems high functioning autistic but is undiagnosed. He builds robots and goes to battle bot competitions. My cousin on my dads side has some kind of diagnosis but I dont know what and my other cousin (his brother) had motor skill delay but I dont know his diagnosis either. My dads cousins son obviously has tourettes. As for my moms side of the family Mom is undiagnosed but obviously has OCD and dyslexia. She also seems kind of bipolar and seems to have cognative problems, possiblly a thought disorder. My friends think she might have schizophrenia but its hard to tell. She has told me of hallucinations such as seeing jesus in the celling and rats running up the wall. Her brother seems OCD as well. Her Dad and Grandmother both developed Dementia during old age and her sister is super religious and talks about when Jesus will come back although that doesnt necessarily mean anything. From my observation it seems there's an autism gene on dads side of the family and a psychosis gene on moms side of the family. I think my parents may have had a diagnosis before and never told me. I know my mom used to take medication and Ive seen a report from when I was a kid where my parents filled something out and theres a questionare about my parents health and two of the questions were where it had psychological disorders which my mom was checked and learning disorders where my dad was checked although he seems more Aspergers than learning disordered and he is actually very intelligent and sucessful as an airplane mechanic. They never told me about my own diagnosis either until I found out on my own when I was 22 and my mom gave me a notebook full of psych evals from when I was a kid that she saved after I confronted her about it. This made my school years very difficult because she always denied anything when I would ask why I wasnt like the other kids at school and didnt even tell the schools as far as I know. I dont think she ever told my father either. Ironically I also graduated highschool finally when I was 22 as well.

wow your family sounds very similar to mine. I didnt bring my dads side up at all, but that seems to be where I get my bi-polar tendencies and the rage issues. I talked to my grandmother on my dads side and she pretty much summed up that side of the family as having a long history of mental illness, and there were some murderers that never got convicted. phew good thing that was like 100 yrs ago. But I found out that every single male on that side of the family can at times be extremely violent( I have this too) with very short snapping points. combine that with us being around 6"1-6"6 and what you get is kinda scary.

Thats intresting. Autistic/Psychotic hybrids can be very creative. They are thought to be opposite disorders. It seems for me that some of the autistic/psychotic symptoms cancel each other out. I dont really have most the symptoms that they have in common but have more of the symptoms that dont overlap. I think that the overlapping symptoms are cancelling each other out. You should read this attached link as well. Its an intresting theory. I bought the book this guy wrote too. Its called the imprinted brain and its about genes in autism and psychosis caused from opposite genes.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the ... ake-genius

This Wikipedia article gives a general introduction into what is currently known about the genetics of autism, including Asperger's syndrome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_autism

There isn't a single gene that causes it, but a series of genes appear to be involved - i.e. different people seem to have different selections from this pool of genes, which is one reason why they differ so much (the spectrum thing). Unfortunately only some of the genes have been discovered, and it is not clear how all of those genes operate. The genetics of autism is NOT simple, but the condition is known to be largely genetic.

That said, it runs in my family (I, one of my brothers, and one of his daughters) and in another family I know (father probably, and three of the four children).