For those that believe ASD is Only hard wired/genetic

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What is your explanation for changing, fluctuating, or worsening ASD symptoms?

I'm curious. Seriously.

Some people believe that ASD is solely caused by a different type of hard wired brain connectivity pattern and/or genetics. If this is the whole truth, then how does one explain their ASD symptoms changing, fluctuating, or worsening? It would seem to me that IF ASD were solely based on these fixed properties, that symptoms would remain fairly consistent.

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

Hebian plasticity. IE, the neural wiring is not set in stone and changes over time.

Brain studies have shown that the anatomical differences between Aspies and NTs are clearly the result of how those parts of the brain have naturally developed in those individuals, and are not the result of damage, abuse, disease, etc.

Now if you are going to go off with your "Pearls before swine" and Christian fundieesque "Free gift of salvation from ASD", save it. Its clear to everyone here but you that you haven't cured anything. So you learned to save money? Whoopty do. I've been doing that for years.

Well said Nephets. Unlike many here, I embrace my autism as part of who I am. I proudly wear my weird clothes and have a bumper sticker that says Autism, it worked for Einstein; and another that says Cure Neurotypicals. How do you like it?

For the most part I see NTs as dishonest people. Why would I want to be like them?

The "changing, fluctuating, or worsening" situations which we find ourselves facing is surely one immediately obvious factor. Is the behaviour of non-autistic people always "consistent" just because they're "wired that way"? - not as far as I can tell.

Your autism is not fluctuating.

Your coping system may fluctuate.

So your "symptoms" may get worse when you are under pressure, do not get enough sleep, experiment big changes, become suddenly aware of one autism related weakness, experiment failure, etc.

Your argument doesn't even follow logically.

you're saying that because AS folks are born with autism, and have symptoms that "fluctuate" (ie hover around some constant level),or....get worse over time, and then you follow that last point with the loudly silent failure to drop the other shoe, and add "or get better over time"( which means that you're admitting that its not only incurable, but that you cant even improve over time) ergo autism is... not ...hardwired.

Saying that autism is a chronic condition that (you actually imply DOES) stay about the same over time, OR degenerates into getting worse, but can never be cured, or even get less severe, in fact argues that it IS hard wired.

Neurotransmitter levels change all the time. They aren't fixed in concrete at birth, and low amounts of any of the core nuerotransmitters affect function in a variable way, as does stress from environmental/life events, the amount of acceptance or marginalisation, the amount of support and understanding and acceptance or complete lack of these. I believe that AS is very definitely genetic, and the heritability studies indicate the same. But function is variable.

AS people live in a power imbalance which affects daily life for all of us. Sometimes more than others. So you get variable impacts depending on the degree to which these impact at any time.

I have a very different view from you Goldfish, but each to their own. I do have the advantage of being intimately aware of how AS affected five generations of my family, including myself, in both similar and different ways. It has certainly influenced the viewpoints I have. I have seen them all struggle from the impact of NT misunderstandings, and the NT lack of a theory of mind when it comes to how AS people feel is a compounding factor.

I also think that those who internalise false stigmatisations and myths about AS have a harder time, as their self esteem and self acceptance is deeply affected, and no amount of vitamins is going to make their lot any or much better. We need a sea change in the culture generally for that, both in the AS culture that we occupy and the NT culture which everyone lives in.

Perhaps this over-simplified metaphor is helpful in explaining my position: think of AS a skeleton, and inherited skeleton, and think of impacts on that skeleton as cultural/environmental. The dance of the interplay between them is a constant.

One thing we know for sure is that AS brains function differently, and more and more evidence is coming out that demonstrates that AS brains use different parts of the brain for tasks compared to NTs performing the same tasks. Those findings underline the different wiring view of AS, and I don't think any amount of probiotics - though these may be helpful in other ways - modify the program in the least. Another metaphor I like is the one that uses software analogy - some computers run on Linux, some on Windows, some on other programs. Windows is "normative" because that's what most people use. They are all valid for their own purpose. What is normative for others is not normative for us, and vice versa, but their differences don't mean that Windows is the only one that isn't defective...

It seems to me(relatively uneducated compaired to some on the subject of Autism) that the root cause of any ASD would be the nuro-pathways that form in the brain during it's development in the womb. However waxing or waning of the symptoms over x amount of time would be due to, at least in part, evironmental factors that have an impact on emotional and mental well-being(I.E: stress, consumption and dependence on drugs, wether it be illegal or perscription, financial troubles, etc).

My personal belief is that its a little bit of both genetic/epigenetics and upbringing and or other environemental factors.

And that seems to be modern consensus.

Back in the Sixties autism was explained by the now infamous "refrigerator mom" theory that tanked even before the Sixties were over. That caused the scientific community to lean too far in the opposite direction (that its all nature and zero part nurture). Its probably mostly nature, but how severe your autism is can be influenced by upbringing and chemicals in the environment.