Family members/friends with autistic traits?

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I'm not sure if this is the right place for this but... yeah. If not feel free to move it.

Anyway, I was wondering if you ever notice friends or family who show autistic traits, other than being autistic yourself. For me, my dad shoes signs of Asperger Syndrome. He has very little social skills and doesn't interact with anyone other than probably us or anyone with authority like his doctors or something. O_o He also gets mad when me and my mom are talking while he watches TV... and he is actually HARD of hearing, which I find odd. He knows a lot about science, history and politics and is also a total bookworm.

My mom however... she repeats herself a lot. She always has to be right about everything and she can't take jokes or sarcasm when me and my dad mess with her. She gets mad about and storms right off. Her social skills are somewhat okay since she has a few friends but she has trouble keeping friends too. She has the WORST angry outbursts over the littlest of things. If you piss her off, she'll start going off and saying things loudly about it right in public. It's really embarrassing. These are actually outbursts because for her, I don't think she realizes what she is saying because she gets so worked up that she says things without realizing who is hearing her or whatever.

I know for me, Autism isn't very genetic but I always notice that with my parents this way that I might have gotten a more moderate to severe form of autism from them. Plus among other things I have as well.

But what about you? Do you ever notice anything with your family or friends? Like maybe your parents or siblings?

My dad has sensory sensitivities, most notably sound sensitivities. The other day when I was visiting them my sister was watching the Ellen DeGeneres show and my dad couldn't be in the same room because of the cheering. I can kind of understand, I don't watch much TV and the cheering didn't bother me, but other sounds bother me.

Neither of my parents have friends. They don't hang out with anyone. They have coworkers. I don't know if adults just don't hang out with friends like university students do, or what, but they don't really have friends. My dad is also very logical, and no one in my family shares their emotions.

I have five siblings, and I think most of them display autistic traits, even though I'm the only one whose been diagnosed with anything as I was the only one ever tested. Everyone in my family is very intelligent, but seems to lack "common sense". My older brother is obsessed with linguistics, and he comes across as a bit a jerk. My 10 year old sister was home schooled for two years after she couldn't stand many aspects of school any longer, and doesn't understand a lot of normal humor. My 7 year old brother rarely talks to anyone besides his best friend, who is are German next door neighboor, and he went through speech therapy when he was younger as he had trouble pronouncing certain sounds. My youngest sister, who is 5, is just crazy, and not in the normal 5 year old way. I can't exactly describe whats wrong with her but she appears to display some traits that appear to relate to autistic lack of empathy, and she is also even more hyperactive than you should expect from a 5 year old. My 12 year old is the only person in my family who really seems normal, but apparently she has the reputation for being the weird kid in her grade, probably from having such weird siblings who rubbed there weirdness of on her.

My dad does, and I think one of his brothers is autistic.

My younger brother displays autistic traits. He has a routine that he hates to change, he is very particular about his hairstyle and his clothes, he is an extremely picky eater, he unwinds by rocking back and forth in a rocking chair, and he has special interests: old movies, music and fashion (ranging from the 20s to the early 60s), the singers Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, and the actor Humphrey Bogart.

I used to think my dad was autistic due to his eccentric behavior, but now my mom and I suspect that he may actually be in the early stages of Alzheimer's because of his worsening short-term memory problems and gradually changing personality.

For awhile I thought my mom had autistic traits because she's never had friends since she graduated high school and claims to have learned social skills through observation, but when I talked to her about the possibility, we agreed that those problems (among others she has) are due to the fact that she had a horrible childhood, including abusive parents.

Yes, you just described my parents.

Except my mother has a lot of friends. She does seem to argue with them a lot though. However my parents have always kept people that they know at arm's length & called them acquaintances. I remember as a kid asking why they didn't have any friends & they said that you couldn't trust people.

I'm a mom of a 4 year old autie daughter. I would say my entire immediate family is introverted and socially awkward. I'm the only one of my family with weird sensory issues though, especially vestibular, hearing and periprotional. I'm also pretty logical and I don't seem the experiance the 'range of emotions' as strongly as others, although I'm not diagnosee I score high on the online tests and reading tony attwoods "complete guide to aspergers syndrome" I really could see myself in much of it. I've researched and I've heard that many kids have at least one parent with 'shadow' autistic traits, similar just not strong, I'd defintately think I'd fall into that category.

My spouse is definately NT and very social, but I always bug him, telling him he has 'spindy senses'. All of his senses are incredably sharp and sensitive He's super sensitive to smells and tastes and it's like he has superhuman hearning and vision.

I don't spend alot of time thinking about genetics and the cause of autism, I just think my daughter inheritied alot of the traits that make her mom and dad 'different' and less of the traits that make us 'normal'.

Absolutely. My father must be a Semi-Aspie. He has very poor social skills, and always keeps to his own policies, even if it's against his best interest. He sometimes says rude words to us and doesn't consider their negative effect. Also, he's sensitive for certain noises similarly to me, like cheap metallic sounding radios, rap, forced laughter and such. He has a huge lexical knowledge, mainly historical, geographical, thinks logically, very good at playing cards and chess, and the list might go on and on. I think he has only one friend, if we can call it one, and only a few acquaintances. I guess he had another friend who passed away.

I'm not arm-chair diagnosing here, but I can see more or less autistic traits throughout my broader family, friends, acquaintances, though I'm the "worst" of them ASD-wise, I think. This is not simply a co-incidence, as similarities attract each other.

I have a friend (one of the two I have), who must be a HFA, he is so stereotypical. Guess what, he also holds a special place for Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Casablanca.

My dad, yup Im pretty sure its who I got it from but he's undiagnosed. My former psych met him once, agreed with me that she thought he was aspie. He's super anal about his schedule and not very flexible. He doesnt know humor and takes things too literally. He says the obvious and asks obvious questions. Even tho he's sooo crazed out about scheduling, he doesnt use his common sense to link things together about my schedule and he has to be explicitly told sometimes. Im naturally very explicit and leave little room for "reading between the lines".

Both of my parents are a little unusual and are complete opposites of each other. My dad is very quiet, although I think he's NT. He let some things at work get to him (he was being picked on) and it resulted in a traumatic time for our family, but I don't like to speak about it. He has no friends and doesn't do anything outside the house, without my mum or me. He's also highly sensitive to noise. I have a 5yr old and, as you can imagine, she can be quite noisy. I've seen him cringing at times. Sometimes I raise my voice (I don't shout), when she's doing something naughty, and my dad will say, 'Don't do that, you've given me a fright'. And he responds really negatively to something or someone being too close to his face (just like me). But, on the whole my dad is really easy to get along with and everyone says he's a lovely man.

But my mum is harder to fathom out. She's very thin skinned and you always have to watch what you say to her, as she takes offence very easily. She speaks to a lot of people and has a reputation for being a chatterbox, but she loses friends very readily. One of her two friends takes her to bingo once a week. But, this lady is unbelievably lazy and has a very poor diet, which have resulted in health problems. This gets to my mum and she has told her to her face what she was thinking about her. So far, the friend has just taken it on the chin, but I don't know how long it will go on. Eating out is a nightmare with her. She's handed a menu and can't make a decision. She usually opts for something that someone else is taking or, if I'm feeling up to it, I'll suggest something to her, and she'll usually go along with it. She can read, but it's as if she can't understand, under pressure. She always likes tea with her meal, but instead of saying to the waiter, 'Please bring my tea with my meal', she'll say something like, 'I don't want my tea to be brought out way before my meal'. She has a negative way of putting things and I can see the waiter looking bemused. If there's something wrong with her meal, she doesn't accept apologies and just keeps going on about it. And she stares, a lot, and my dad says her mum was the same. I swear, someone's going to knock her out some day. But, I love her. Her family means everything to her and I couldn't ask for a better mum or granny for my daughter.

Both parents and my brother show(ed) clear signs of Aspergers - and based on accounts by my father, so did his father - I told my mother about my Autism but she either doesn't understand or is in denial

My grandma shows clear signs of autism, but shes a real nice lady to us. But she has no contact with her kids anymore. Also my dad tends to get attached to dumb things, he actually TRIES to safe the relationship with his girlfriend whos obviously cheating on him. They split up like 20 times already.

If I had to pick someone, it would be my dad. But then again, he may just be a moron. Especially since I find most people morons, and I find it very difficult to tell the difference between other people. They all behave like chimps, in my opinion.

I've never noted this before, but my dad has told me he exhibits a few traits like me. For example, he sometimes has to be told about "tone of voice" I frequently get told I sound impolite when I'm not trying to. I think my dad is the only one. My sister exhibits some OCD traits though.

It's possibly too, that our parents never had the autistic diagnosis we get today. My mom had actually admitted that she had a learning disability growing up but because of the times back then, not much was really done for those with learning or developmental disorders so I think as she got older, without the help, it got worse as she matured and it developed into something more. I know my dad grew up poor too and that might have caused an impact for him as well.

It's funny how people think that autism isn't genetic. I believe that there is a possibility it IS genetic because if you look at the evidence we have seeing our parents... the likelihood is actually common. I mean look at the genetic proof we have for ADHD or mental retardation... those sort of disorders. I think there is a possibility some cases of Autism are genetic. But to me, its just not as proven because most parents are considered as having undiagnosed autistic parents who have autistic children diagnosed, you know?

I know my dad has AS... but he says he doesn't. But he doesn't really need to be diagnosed because of his physical limitations with age, tendinitis and arthritis. He does have depression and other conditions I don't know about. My mom is a pretty obvious autistic that both me and my dad notice.

I mean I am also autistic so its something that makes you wonder, you know? Most of our parents have autistic traits and here we are as diagnosed aspies or autistics (for those that aren't aspies like me who border HFA/AS). It makes you wonder.