Nature vs. Nurture

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I was wondering, do you feel AS is something you're born with, or does it have something to do with your early environment, such as the way you grew up, and the peple you were around. So far I've found evidence supporting both theories, such as a gene researchers think is associated with AS, but there's also been reports supporting the contrary, like the article about the fathers and grandfathers of people with AS being engineers, or scientists. Also I've read that AS has a higher prevalence in Silicon Valley.

Yes, you are born with it, and you likely inherit it from somebody. I did. Some of my children did.

Academic professions and Silicon Valley type of jobs appeal to people with AS - so higher concentrations lead to more AS-AS or AS-NT pairings which lead to more AS kids - makes perfect sense as far as genetics go - though the genetics are very complicated, and fetal development may also play a role.

There are environmental traumas that can mimic autistic symptoms but that's different from actual autism.

It is absolutely not environmental. Two male same age cousins in my close knit family, whom I grew up with like brothers, are the antithesis of Autistic, as is the sister who grew up in the same home with me.

My paternal Grandmother however, was surely as Aspergian as I am, and I have a female cousin on that side of the family diagnosed, whom I barely know. Genetics.

It's something that you're born with.

I think there is something to be said for environmental factors, but probably not in the way you mean.

If it is genetic, and I do think it is, and it's coming down through your parents and grandparents, they grew up with Aspie mentalities, so you would grow up in a home, probably unsuspecting, filled with Aspie mentality. Being in that environment, you're likely to not only be born with your own AS traits, but will also learn some from your parents. Conflicts unique to Aspie-Aspie relationships are bound to crop up, so you're probably very likely to learn certain patterns of action-reaction that are more likely to occur between Aspies, and not so much between non-Aspies. Those patterns could recur throughout your life.

Some of the stuff that you might have learned you can probably overcome. What you'd be left with are the traits that are you and you alone. You can learn to cope with them, but in different ways, usually by "faking it" or pretending you are just like everyone else, but that's just an act.