New Theory around Autism and other "disorders"

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If anyone cares, I am ASD. I am a very scientific person as I've been told so me loving science, I have formed a theory (not sure if it has been done before) involving autism and other "disorders". This theory builds off of other theories that people have come up with. The theory goes like this, if humans are related in some form and as seen in the movie "Deliverance", humans who are too closely related have offspring that are usually met with mutations and chromosomal disorders. If you have noticed, the last 20 or so years the "population" of people with autism and anxiety has increased, this got me thinking that maybe each generation of offspring are more prone to have these genetic mutations due to humans being related in some form, obviously this is a super slow process because the odds of someone being "closely" related to a stranger is like 1 in 7,400,000, possibly only 1 in 324,118,787 if you are a U.S. citizen, though if all humans are related, then each generation would have more genetic mutations from crossing over (chromosome information crossing over). It is a jumbled theory, but I hope that makes sense. If it doesn't I'll be glad to try to clear it up.

The increase in diagnosis is not evidence for an increase in incidence.

Surely genetic information also fades and weakens with each generation, as well?

I'm no scientist, but I'm thinking that if my great great great grandmother was autistic and married someone with shared ancestors and some of the genetic material for autism as well, then the material for autism might be strengthened there. But if her own daughter then married someone entirely separate to their ancestral line, the genetic 'code' for autism would be lessened again. Surely your theory only works if people are constantly reproducing with others that have autism in their genes/are related, which isn't realistic? It's not going to progressively 'worsen' unless everyone's breeding closely with one another.

But I could be way off the mark.

In my opinion, the increase in apparent autism incidence can be attributed to

1. The broadening of the diagnostic criteria since 1994

2. An increase in the awareness of this "new autism."

I disagree. In the past autism may have been known by other names or misdiagnosed, but it has always been with us. Between this and the broadening of the criteria, there has been an increase in diagnoses but not in incidence.

I believe it's because they have changed the criteria to include more people on it. Back then they would have had other labels like learning disabilities, language, social delay, sensory processing disorder, developmental delay, etc. All these labels for each issues they have. One of my online friends was diagnosed ADHD in 1987 and he scored negative on the autism test. Today he has AS and he was also labeled as having an emotional disorder as a child.

More people have anxiety because work expectations have changed and life is more stressful. I also believe more people have disabilities these days because life has changed. Even education has changed. I might have been fine back in the olden days. That is what my mom thinks of me. She also thinks I would have made it through school fine without help because schoolwork was more concrete and kids helped each other with homework. That is if I could fit in back then too and if anyone would have been willing to help me also and if I wasn't too anxious to ask for help. But I also think I would have been institutionalized and I wouldn't have made it this far unless my own mother decided to not do it and just work with me at home and be my teacher and therapist. I am sure not everyone institutionalized their kids because they believed they could be independent and live a normal life.

There is an idea that some hotspots for autism, like Silicon Valley, are caused by "assortative mating"--people with similar traits finding each other simpatico to marry. Geek + Geek = autistic offspring at a much higher rate.

However, as other poster have pointed out, there is no autism epidemic that can't be explained by greater awareness of the disorder and broader diagnostic criteria.

I'm not convinced. It could be down to another factor that causes both - that the people in Silicon Valley are more educated on average so it may be the case they are more likely to know the signs of autism and see a doctor when concerned. I don't know, I'm just guessing.

That's also my opinion. That's the reason that there seems to be an increase. I don't see it as an epidemic. The Bubonic Plaque was an epidemic. Autism is a different way of being.

I also agree with the expanding diagnostic criteria, more awareness explanation.

I think that society has become more Autistic unfriendly in certain ways. More sensory stimulation, a lot more emphasis on multitasking, networking and group work, with devices less opportunity to learn social skills, helicopter parenting less opportunity to learn what works for you and what does not. These do not mean there are more autistics, but I do think it means that many autistics who can not be a functional member of society would have been able to do so 50 years ago. While the opposite is true also because of the supports today, I think it is a lot less than those unable to function today that could have in the past.

I'll ask my Dad & sister - I mean mum, what they think

As a kid I was diagnosed as odd, gifted, and having severe anxiety.

I am now diagnosed as:

I agree. I think society in many ways has become people unfriendly, and autistics are feeling it the most. I think kids born with wonky social instincts really profit from growing up in stable environments and surrounded by large extended families, and preferably with lots of nature surrounding them.

In a way, the push to exclude some of the milder cases from the diagnosis is both right and wrong simultaneously. Right, because it's absurd to diagnose large groups with a developmental disorder just because they don't thrive in an unhealthy environment. Wrong, because those people have real problems that aren't fixable just by telling them that the world's gone crazy. They still have to live in it.

I find it very mixed.

On one hand, the world is so much busier now. We can barely go anywhere without being in a busy location, surrounded by crowds of people. And, like you say, the emphasis on networking and group work is so strong now. Everything is fast-paced and constantly changing - people are expected to be able to do everything, at every hour of the day.

That said, some aspects of life feel easier now. I can maintain friendships online, to some extent. I have portable technologies to use as tools. I can even go to the supermarket, buy a trolley full of shopping, pay and leave, without interacting with another human being. But, maybe the fact that this matters so much to me makes me all the more aware of it. And, also, makes it easier to give myself accommodations. Having handheld scanners at the supermarket has meant that I would go out of my way to go there and would avoid other stores. When I sing, I use a tablet for my sheet music whilst everyone else uses endless sheets of paper. When friends communicate with me, I can ignore their messages for a while and respond once I've had a chance to get my head around them and come up with an answer. In that respect, there is less of a need for immediacy.

Perhaps the world is getting more and more difficult to deal with, but modern technologies are making it easier and easier for autistic people to develop their own accommodations and hide away. Maybe if awareness weren't increasing, we'd start to see a drop in the new diagnoses again in time - more autistic people flying under the radar, because they've found ways to avoid the bits they find difficult.

In a word "inbred".

You are suggesting that autism exists because humans are too inbred, and that autism (and other disorders like that) are getting more common because humans are becoming more inbred.

Humans (as I understand it) actually do have less genetic diversity than many other mammal species (like chimps for example).

But the two problems are (a) there is no real evidence yet that autism is becoming common than it ever was. The fact that they find more autistics is probably an artifact of how they are both getting better at diagnosing it, and of the fact that the category has been widened by definition to include more people (as many above have pointed out). and (b)if anything humans are trending toward being less inbred than to being more inbred. In the Middle Ages you got your spouse from the neighboring village seven miles away. But in the last couple of centuries humans have been getting increasingly more mobile rather than less mobile, and thus able to find spouses from distant populations with differing genetic stock.

Although ironically that last trend (toward finding your spouse in the college you both went to which was a thousand miles from either of your birthplaces, rather than finding your spouse in your native village) might lead to more "assortive mating" (people picking spouses with similar mental traits to themselves). And that might cause an increase in autism: cerebral folks marrying other cerebral folks resulting in children who overdosed in genetic cerebralness who are autistic. I have toyed with that as my own theory. But again its not really proven that autism really is on the increase.

Nah! I'm not saying it's aliens... but it's aliens.