What are the chances that my child will have be ID?

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ID meaning intellectually disabled. I have very minor aspergers, and have a high IQ. I am fretting over the idea that my future child will have very severe autism because I biologically have the trait. Does my very mild form of HFA increase the chance that a child of mine would have severe autism?

And please don't tell me that it's offensive/not politically correct to be concerned about a future child being disabled. Autism in it of itself is not a disability, but intellectual disabilities are, as the name directly states, a disability.

Sadly, we can't tell yet. You have a lot more chances to get a child on the spectrum that a NT person (or a child with ADHD or language disorder, which share some common neurobiological basis). But if you will or if you won't, and whether that child would be severe impaired, with the information I have, I would say that we can't tell at all.

It's definitely not "guaranteed" that you will be the father of somebody with an intellectual disability because you have mild Asperger's. Most of the time, kids will come out either NT or with similar Aspergian-type issues which might affect them in either a positive or a negative way.

No one in my family, going back a few generations, has any sort of autistic symptoms whatsoever. The only thing I can say is that there were a few "eccentrics" in my family--but what family doesn't have "eccentrics" within it?

I don't know. I've gone looking for data and haven't found any. My guess is the chances are higher, but I don't know how high.

But I do know that having a child with ID (or a normal-IQ child with LFA, which can often be mistaken for ID) is not a catastrophe like people think it is. Yes, it's a disability. But with the right support they can still lead a good happy life, it's just more challenging in some ways.

You must decide for yourself, but I know that for myself, I won't let fear of having a lower-functioning child stop me from becoming a mother. After all, no parent is guaranteed that their child won't have some kind of significant disability. I know many parents who, as far as they knew, had no increased risk at all, and yet had a child with a disability and they still love & value their kids and get a lot of joy from their kids. Unfortunately, some parents feel entitled to a normal child, and they tend to freak out when their child has a disability. If you know ahead of time that it's a possibility, you'll handle it a lot better.

I think that really all parents, regardless of 'risk', should give some thought to how they'd handle it if their child had a significant disability. And not just the flippant 'I could never do that', but really consider what they'd do if the child they've had for several months and grown to love is gradually showing signs of being on a very different developmental path to normal. People like to pretend that parents of disabled kids are saints - they're not. They're just ordinary people who have been put in a situation and are trying to deal with it the best they can, and most people could do what they do if put in the same situation.

And I'm also making preparations so that if my kid is LFA I know how to give them the best chance in life anyway - for example I found an awesome AAC app and I'm learning to use it so I can teach it to my child. (Even if my worries don't come true, it won't hurt my kid to use AAC while he or she is learning to talk.) I'm also learning how to teach life skills to autistic kids. Basically my plan is to start from birth with a bunch of strategies that wouldn't hurt an NT or HFA kid but could make a huge difference in the life of an LFA kid.

It's more likely than the chances of an NT having a neurodiverse child (as someone else described, other disorders such as ADHD are also more common) but that doesn't necessarily mean it's likely.

Unfortunately, we're not able to tell.

In my family we haven't yet had any severely autistic people (I sometimes talk about my nephew in-law, in case anyone's seen that and got confused). I would say it's likely that my grandfather (who seems the most autistic of us all), my dad (three separate women he's dated have suggested he might have AS) and my brother (often noted as 'behind' socially) could all have ASD. I'm also told that a couple of people who are either of my grandfather's... it cousins or nephews are a 'bit different' (according to my grandmother when talking about my ASD). One of them still lives in his elderly mother's basement playing games all day.

My grandfather got quite cross because he came into the conversation late and though she was saying they were gay (I think he operates a fair bit of cognitive dissonance about the fact I'm married to a woman), but he seems to accept they're odd.