New and some questions.

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Hi
I found Wrong Planet while researching for my son, who is almost 3.
I've read so much information it feel like my head might pop.
Anyway, I have come to the conclusion that we come from a long line of people with autism traits.

I took the Aspie quiz and here is my score
Your Aspie score: 138 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 71 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie


Ok here are my questions:
It asked about Neanderthal Heritage Score. I left that blank because I didn't know. What does the Neanderthal heritage score have to do with being an Aspie?
The other is that there was a part of the score that related to hunting. What does hunting have to do with Aspies? (I LOVE hunting, fishing and making my own traps)

Also is there any real point in getting a diagnosis for me? I am in my 40's and already retired. I honestly consider myself normal but very shy with a few quirks. (I rock side to side, wag my foot, and chew plastic pen caps when I am nervous)

I suspect it was made up by some eugenicist who wants to try and prove that we are less evolved

In European populations we have 4-6% Neanderthal DNA that isn't present in Africans. I would guess the question is there to identify if there is a link between the ASD and neanderthal DNA. Also Neanderthals were as advanced as Homo sapiens at the time, probably more so in some technologies.

Physically they tended to be bigger and stronger (but not so tall) than the Homo sapiens more capable of surviving in cold climates. Over all having a larger brain but less effective vocal communication. I can also see that some of the aspie traits like increased senses, diligence, trustworthiness and obsession could be useful to populations living in tundra environments (they are seen in modern populations such as Inuit) so a link might not be impossible.

If people of purely African descent could be found that were autistic, would that disprove the Neanderthal/autism theory, or would it indicate that the symptoms of autism might have more than one cause?

Oh, and if you feel like your functioning in the world ok, perhaps a diagnosis would be of little benefit to you.

Hi GreenMamma! Welcome to Wrong Planet! You only really need to get an official diagnosis if you are going to apply for assistance, treatment, or therapy from the gov or insurance company based on your Autism/Asperger's spectrum disorder. Since they would be footing all, or at least part of the bill, they need to know if you have the condition. Of course if you just want to know officially for your own self, that's okay, too, but it may effect your insurance plan and premiums. Any illness, injury, or condition that anyone has effects their medical insurance coverage and costs.

You are among friends here at WP!

With the movement of populations within the last 2000 years it would be difficult to prove that the 'gene' wasn't present from a non African ancestor. Autism rates are a lot lower in Africa and higher in more isolated area's (static indigenous people) such as the UK, Ireland, Denmark and Japan (fringes of neanderthal world).

Personally I'm with there being more than one cause with certain environmental triggers causing the condition to manifest in the genetically disposed. Like sociopaths (natural warriors/leaders) I can see that there are advantages to each type that could be an advantage to the individual/group survival. I'd say for ASD that trigger could be overcrowding as aspie tendencies even being isolationist would protect against disease and other factors wiping out the complete group etc. Think I'll have to look into it in more detail.

I never even though of Aspergis until a few months ago when someone said I was a sociopath like Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock Holmes. Someone else said he was an aspie and so I looked it up. As to functioning I practiced reading micro expressions from video/ people watching and can keep up a reasonable NT act (not that I understand why they do some things) which I can do unless I'm tired, overloaded or outside of my comfort zone and certain people can see through it. Plus spend a lot of time unemployed as cant cope in some work environments.

I always thought it was just me and finding out there are others like me and I can be 'me' without the act (something I never completely do even around most close friends/family) would love to know for certain, but the diagnosis would go on my medical records and have to be disclosed to employers. If you know yourself is there anything to prove by getting a piece of paper saying it, although I know there is a difference.

Welcome aboard greenmamma!

Ive taken online tests like the one you're taking about and I score more neurotypical, and less as less aspie than you- and ive been officially diagnosed as an aspie by a specialist who gave me the whole exhaustive test. So you are very likely an aspie.

But thats surprising that they asked you about your "Neanderthal Heritage".

Never seen that in an online test before.

But the "neanderthal hypothesis" is the flavor of the month fad theory to explain the origin of the autism spectrum thats all the rage right now.

You should be aware of the theory.
Whether you should buy into or not is an open question to say the least.

Neanderthals lived in western asia and in europe. Anatonmical moderns seemed to have originated in tropical Africa and then to moved into the northern hemisphere and to have driven neanderthals to extinction-but there was some hanky panky before the neanderthals died out. So some modern inhabitants of the former range of the Neanderthals are turing out to have one to six percent Neanderthal DNA. These being folks in the western part of Eurasia (ie white europeans). Africans presumably would lack neanderthal DNA- and thus lack autism.
So the theory is that Whites and some asians are more likely to be autistic than modern africans because they have more "neanderthal heritage" (ie more neanderthal dna).

Hense the question.

Its a completely unproven theory with all kinds of problems even testing.
Its about as solidly proven as the belief that autistic people are descended from refugees from the sunken continent of Atlantis or are all really space aliens.

But many take it as gospel.

Its an interesting hypothesis- one I suspect is "usefully wrong" ( ie investigating it would lead to interesting research but will likely be proven wrong).

The theory does have a certain logic.
Anatomical moderns and neanderthals were contemporaries and had the same Mousterian tool kit during the 100 thousand years that the two groups lived on seperate continents.
It was only after the AM's invaded europe and the Neanderthals vanished about 35thousand years ago when AM's invented the more advanced tool kit known as "Upper Paleolithic"- a quantum leap beyond the Mousterian. So one-on-one both types of humans were equally smart about making tools. But the AM's were better able to organize and exploit kinship ties and alliances and pool resources and manpower to use their similiar technology to prevail.
Thus Neanderthals mustve been socially more stunted. The anatomical moderns were not better engineers but better salesmen and diplomats.
thus a neanderthal heritage might have something to do with the modern socially stunted autism spectrum people of today.
Maybe.

The creators of the test are probably seeking correlations.

One interesting correlation is the Nordic races. Minnesota has a high ASD rate and has the most Norwegian americans. Iceland, Ireland and UK have high rates and were settled by Danes to some extent. The Norman area's of France have higher rates than the rest which has the same as Germany.

Twin studies indicate a probably genetic basis as if present in 1 twin the other has 40-95% chance of having it compared to 0-31 for non identical (same environment).

Interesting to compare the two maps.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Americans
http://graphics.latimes.com/usmap-autism-rates-state/

But why Japan?

You're fine. Now, your child may benefit from official diagnosis with school and all ahead in life.

Thanks to everyone who took time to answer. I'm glad I found this place.

The Neanderthal theory is interesting and there may or may not be something to it. Can't believe I haven't run across that theory yet.
So I assume the questions about love of hunting must have something to do with Neanderthal genes? " Me Neanderthal, Me love hunt UGG" Too funny.

I don't think I will pursue a diagnosis for myself. Though it does explain some things. I'm really more concerned for my son and his speech delay at this point.

Thus far, he is making most of his milestones except language. He has a 40% speech & language delay. His Anterior Fontanel is not yet fully closed but the doctor has determined that it is a "normal variant" called familial macrocephaly. He gives pretty good eye contact except to strangers. It takes a few visits before he is comfortable enough to give eye contact to a new person. (I call that shy)

At 18 mos he stopped learning new words and began drawing for about 6-8 hours a day. He didn't stop talking, he just stopped learning new words and for about 6 months, he spent most of his waking hours drawing pictures. He can now draw faces that have cupid bow lips and almond shaped eyes. He can do 50-80 piece puzzles. He can count beyond 100. He can read quite a few words and sometimes will read an entire sentence from a book he has never seen, but he doesn't say much or put words together into sentences very often. We get maybe two good sentences a day out of him. The rest of the time he uses only one word or he will make noises and gestures. He does seem to understand most of what we say though.

He lines up his toys and he shakes his head when he is sleepy, when he sees blinking lights or when he sees quickly changing pictures (like the intro to Big Bang Theory on TV.) He doesn't have much opportunity to socialize so I can't say if he is interested in other children or not. My other children are DS16 and DS19. They don't care to even try to play with the baby. He will start 3 year old kindergarten in September so I guess we shall see.

The first person who came to evaluate/screen him to see if he qualified for speech therapy told me he is an autistic savant. But she is not qualified to make that call. Part of the test involved drawing. She had him draw a vertical line, a horizontal line, and a circle. When she asked him to copy a cross, he rolled his eyes, shook his head and said "not." then proceeded to draw a pretty good cartoon likeness of her face. That was about four months ago. We were going to proceed with further evaluations, but the next person who saw him was so incredibly rude that my husband chose to stop evaluations until we see how he responds to his pre-school environment. If he has trouble, then we will go back to our doctor and ask that she refer us to a good Child Psychologist not involved with the school system.

We do have an early interventionist and a speech therapist who specializes teaching autistic children to speak. We don't have an official diagnosis but we got the autism specialist by luck. No one else was available on the days we could meet.

DS loves his speech therapist. He cheers when I tell him she is coming and tells her "No Bye Bye" when she leaves. Neither the EI or the ST think that he has Autism but he is a puzzle to them since has a few signs of autism.

I am fairly certain that my son's issues are genetic from both sides of the family. DH is a lot like me and my stepson didn't talk well until he was almost 4. On my side of the family, DS has 6 cousins. Five of his cousins had late closure of the anterior fontanel. Of those five, all had familial macrocephaly. We all just have big long heads... like neanderthals LOL
Four of his cousins were late talkers and all of them lined things up. All of them are in gifted programs at school now.
My mother tells me that all of her children lined things up and 2 of the five talked late.

Everyone on my side of the family is telling me to just relax and not worry about it. In fact, this is so much a part of our family traits that my mother and aunts have told me that children who don't line things up and spin around when they are little entertain or play by themselves are a little slow... I just want him to talk.