Autism inherited randomly?

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According to an alleged expert who works for the autistic society in the UK autism usually is inherited randomly. Basically if you get autism it has nothing to do with with other people in your family having the condition.

Do you think he’s right or not?

He's saying it's genetic but it has nothing to do with other members of your family?

No, I disagree.

My mom and my NT sister are not on the spectrum.

Our dad was not on the spectrum either.

I have enough people in my family dx'd with it, that I think there has to be some kind of genetic factor at play here. Granted, this is my own observation, not statistical stuff, but in my life and experience, it seems to have a genetic component. Not only from me and my kin, but from kids I knew from my ex working in schools...it seems to run in families. Whatever my observation is worth...

I myself don't know where my own autism came from.

Save for very few (like, about 2 out of possibly nearly hundreds of) cousins of varying degrees (on both sides), which many I never met...
I don't know who else in my family is autistic, and a very handful of few are possibly ND.


Whatever made my cousins ND, though, are likely through in laws than whatever side of the family -- not directly related or are not related to me at all.

Unless neurodivergence skipped 2-4 entire generations on both sides before me... Still, I dunno.

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Mine is genetic and my dad's side seemed to have a lot of autism too but they were never tested.
I've heard that if it is genetic, it quite often skips a generation.
It can also be a spontaneous genetic mutation.

I don't think it's always genetic though.

most autistic parents like on this site alone seem to have several autistic children with autism or adhd and parents/grandparents with it too

havent you seen luke jackson documentary thing his mother had 7 children i think all but 2 have autism or adhd

coincidence ?

Depending on the study about 10 to 30 percent of autistics have no known family history.

definitely not random in my family, easy to trace autistic behavior back in one family line to at least my great great grandmother, who was born in 1859. Every generation in that line had suicides in women before age 30 and suicides in men over the age of 50, plus lots of reported other struggles. I saw it clearly in my grandmother and her daughter (my mother) once I learned of my own autism. It is directly inherited in my case, passed on with the family club foot and other tendencies too!

There’s lots of autism in my family. My mom, my son, my nephew, and I have all been diagnosed. I strongly suspect my dad and brother have it, too. I think one of my grandmothers was autistic as well. I’m a lot like her.

Anyway, I think that autism often has a strong genetic component whether other family members have it or are diagnosed or not.

Both of my bio kids are on the spectrum.

Also their dad’s niece (their cousin) is autistic and was raised in a psych facility.

i think autism is very genetic and people from a mostly autistic family that dont have autism are just lucky

as far as i know im the only autistic in my immediate family but it might be because i was born 3 months early and i almost didnt live
the midwife thought i had a deformed face at first but my face turned out normal so im glad about that

My gut reaction is there is a genetic component to it. However perhaps sometimes an abnormality happens in development phase.

If it’s genetic it would depend on the combination of your mother + your father and how those genes happen to work together, even if one or both aren’t autistic. That’s why our parents won’t necessarily be autistic. Their parents are different from ours.

Friendly reminder that there's a difference between "genetic" and "hereditary".

Hereditary means passed from ancestors to descendants via genes.

Genetic primarily means relating to genes, but does not inherently imply heredity.

While all inherited traits are genetic, not all genetic traits are inherited.

Genetic anomalies can and do occur, without it being a hereditary occurrence.

If you have autism, and so do a lot of other members of the family, it's probably inherited. However, if you have autism, and nobody else in your family has ever had it, for generations back, it's still genetic, since it's cos of how your genes turned out, but not necessarily hereditary, since it may not be from your ancestors genes, but rather from non hereditary factors messing with your genes.

Mental illness and Autism are rampant on both sides of my family. I have 2 first cousins and a Aunt on my Dad's that I suspect have Autism. My Mom is definitely Autistic and one or both of her parents might be too. I strongly believe that there is a genetic component to Autism and that it can be inherited.