why do people say it is impossible to be born with autism?

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I came across some stuff online about parents saying how people aren't born with autism. I am just wondering, even if their kids regressed and were pretty normally developed before, how do they know? I am positive I was born with my autism because my parents could tell I was different from the 2nd day I was born. what about you guys? I know there's a lot of hate about autism causes and "cures", especially autism speaks, but why do people even assume that it is "caused" in the first place???

Never seen or heard anything like that before I'd say it's still due to the stigma and ignorance around all things autism Most people are scared of what they don't know, so they'll take to any viewpoint that resonates with them emotionally and cling to it, even if it isn't necessarily the truth I'm just hoping the stigma around autism will be lifted one day so the future generations of those on the spectrum will be able to be more open about their disorder without scrutiny...

I can think of a few reasons:

1. They want you to think that it's your fault (e.g., "choice") for being the way you are.

2. They're Jenny McCarthy fans, and don't want to go against the word of their (porn) goddess.

3. They're parents of autistic kids, and want someone else to take responsibility for financing their kids' lives

4. They're stupid, ignorant attention-whores who want nothing more than to cause anxiety and trouble for others.

I could go on...

Back in the early days of autism research, autism was blamed on the mother. They were called "refridgerator mothers" because people noticed they did not hug their children as often as mothers of NT children did. (We know now it was probably a sensory issue and the child did not like being handled all the darn time.)

More research is showing that there is a strong genetic component to autism. The current problem is that many people with ASDs are not diagnosed until later in life, leading some folks to believe the onset was late. (In reality, the differences just were not recognized or were misdiagnosed.)

It is taking some parts of the medical and psychiatric communities time to catch up to the research, and it is taking time for researchers to actually ASK PEOPLE WITH ASDs for their perspectives.

The folks who think it is caused are not trying to be mean; they simply are unaware.

When I was born I acted pretty normally for an infant, except maybe the fact that I slept through the night even as a newborn. But so did my brother, who is eccentric maybe, but not likely an aspie. The naysayers firmly want to believe that because a lot of kids are born "normal" or don't show obvious signs until they are older that that must absolutely mean they are not born autistic, someone or something else is to blame, either the parents or vaccines and so they refuse to get their kids vaccinated for diseases that killed off a lot of their relatives many years ago. Oh well, that's one way to solve overpopulation.

Once someone has their mind made up abut something, it is extremely difficult to make them change their opinion, no matter how ridiculous it is. Maybe even nearly impossible. So arguing with such people rarely accomplishes anything.

Because they like to see it as a horrible monster that steals their child and leaves an empty shell.

See the legend of the Changeling. This crap has been going on literally for centuries. At least in the modern version, the parents aren't encouraged to leave the child in a forest clearing in the hopes the faeries will bring back the real child.

There are multiple types and different levels of autism, I self diagnosed my aspergers syndrome and have yet to have it confirmed by some sort of professional. The problem is that the professionals do not know this stuff, They're clueless, constantly grasping at straws, in the form of ideas and thoughts.

Autism can occur in the womb it can also occur from the shock our bodies have to vaccines.

I discovered what causes all of this and I changed my life with what I learned.
I am constantly trying to share it but people think I am full of it!

So I limit myself to the issues instead of trying to help people who don't think someone like myself can actually figure something like this out, But the fact remains.... I lived this!

I know how it happens, I know what causes it and I know how to prevent it and what to do after it happens to reduce the effects and open up possibilities of coming out of it all together.

The severity of autism, I measure by the amount of that which causes it has been consumed and how often!

I was not born with autism, or my aspergers syndrome, It was developed through a lifetime of consuming the toxic substances that cause autism and a great many other behavioral and physical health disorders and problems.

My Aspergers syndrome hasn't gone away but at times it improves, sometimes I have set-backs in the way of accidentally consuming something I shouldn't so the things that lead me to believe that I have aspergers syndrome return and it takes weeks to take myself back to where I was.

Believe it, or not... I have figured out that autiism, aspergers, tourettes, sleep apnea, alzheimers and literally hundreds of other physical and mental health problems are caused by the most severe allergic reaction humans can have!

The fact that we are all unaware that certain chemicals used in foods, beverages, drugs, cosmetics, toiletries, etc are in fact allergens, undiscovered, undeclared, undisputed and unbelieveable.

You, me and every living being on this planet(wrong) are allergic, no one is immune and no one knows!

Stop consuming the allergens and your problems lessen and perhaps can go away if you are able to avoid everything!

Riiiiiiight.

Because they are confusing it with brain damage that can (rarely) result from high fevers associated with vaccines. While brain damage can seem like autism, it's not autism. Also, brin damage from high fevers isn't that common and does happen from fevers not associated with vaccines as well, but it's the ones from vaccines that get the press. Thats why people ave said vaccines can cause autism. It's the fevers associated with them that can sometimes, rarely, cause brain damage. Not the actual vaccine.

I've never had a vaccine and I have AS. So, there ya go.

I never heard of anyone say that. I have seen parents say online their child was normal until they got their *cough* vaccine shot. I was a normal baby too until I started to get ear infections and fevers and they kept on returning. Some people think autism is environmental. Even my ex boyfriend got told to have AS, you have to be born normal and then it appears later in life in childhood. He said he was told that by professionals.

I don't know. I would argue that the only true autism is the kind that you are born with. Leo Kanner identified the kind that a child is born with. He called it an "inborn disturbance of affective contact".

Because they are ignorant a-holes eith no understanding of science

Trust me, I don't eat sugar or gluten (not because I think it will cure my autism) but because when I eat them my blood sugar goes up and I also have adhd so my stims and meltdowns get worse, but it is not a cure. Before I was even eating my parents could tell I was different.

Denial they did not see the symptoms earlier maybe?

Asperger considered his identified syndrome of behaviors as an innate empathy disorder. However, Kanner did not exclude culture as a potential causal factor associated with what he also considered as a disorder of empathy; his paper linked below is where the "refrigerator mother" causal factor of culture originated and persisted until the mid sixties, when Bernard Rimland, the founder of the Autism Society and the Autism Research Institute, published a book with the assistance of Kanner who reversed his opinion on the cultural component of the "refrigerator mother", determining that the disorder was largely a genetic disorder associated with an innate impairment of neurology.

Every father in Kanner's study, "Inborn disturbance of affective contact", linked below, was very successful in positions in life that required a high ability for abstract reasoning, and the parents did not show a great deal of affective empathy themselves, as some of them were caught up in their intellectual pursuits.

It's hard to say whether or not the intellectual pursuits impacted the levels of affective empathy or those parents were born with a certain level of deficit in that area. Kanner went with the assumption that the children were born with the same biological affective/emotional potential as any other child, with further analysis needed to provide evidence of whether or not the lack of affective empathy shown by these children was innate or cultural.

Since the time of Kanner, Asperger, and Rimland, additional research has identified that empathy is not limited as a static innate quality, and it can be increased or decreased as a result of the environment. So there is still the potential that the cultural environment impacting empathy both affective and cognitive, not necessarily the parental one, has an impact as well as all the other considered and not considered genetic and environmental factors.

The current criteria for an autism spectrum disorder, neither fully reflects Asperger or Kanner's description of their respective identified "autistic" syndromes, as there is neither a mandatory requirement for a deficit of empathy or a deficit in non-verbal communication in PDD NOS, Autism Disorder, or Aspergers Syndrome, and a person can be diagnosed with 6 criteria from Autism Disorder, and not share any of the 6 criteria of another person diagnosed with the required 6 out 12 criteria for Autism Disorder. Furthermore that makes 2027 possible combinations of criteria for a diagnosis for that one disorder. That is neither what Kanner, Asperger, or Rimland had in mind, until the DSM first determined it in 1980, with actual diagnostic criteria.

Currently an adult can be diagnosed with PDD NOS or Aspergers syndrome, with no medical records indicating an earlier problem of a neurodevelopmental disorder, so in reality there are people diagnosed with all the minimal required criteria for a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder, with no possible way of determining what portion of environmental vs genetic factors resulted in that diagnosis. But, one can never completely separate the potential that either influence, in any person, is what at least in part constitute the causal factors that results in a diagnosis. So, the answer in all cases now and the future, will have to be potentially both.

This is a real problem when anyone says this or that causes autism, but it is a bigger problem though when associated factors such as vaccines are not considered in rare cases, where there may be rare genetic or environmental factors not influencing others who are not impacted by that or other almost limitless factors that may contribute to the severity of the symptoms of the disorders currently described as ASD's, for some individuals.

2027 combinations of observable behavioral impairments resulting in a diagnosis of Autism Disorder, is mind boggling enough, and evidence enough that not only can two people be diagnosed with completely different impairments, but the underlying causal factors are likely much more complex than 2027 potential combinations of observable behavioral impairments of just that 1 of 5 autism spectrum disorders currently identified.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Asperger

http://simonsfoundation.s3.amazonaws.com/share/071207-leo-kanner-autistic-affective-contact.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigerator_mother

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Rimland

Pretty interesting article below that provides the combinations, and illustrates two different disorders in one, just within the parameters of autism disorder below, in the images provided.

Take out the communication part, and one is left with the same 2 of 4 social impairments and 1 out of 4 restrictive repetitive behavioral impairments that make a minimum requirement for Asperger's, along with the symptoms working together for a clinically significant impairment in a major area of life functioning and the exclusion of cognitive/language delays, other diagnosed ASD's, or schizophrenia.

While not likely, it is possible that a diagnosing professional could diagnose someone that could not look them in the eyes, did not have any friends, and refused to do any other activity except for playing videogames on a computer. That ticks all three required boxes for a diagnosis, and there is currently no requirement for a diagnosing professional to use anything else other than the DSMIV and his/her personal judgement to make a diagnosis. That is not what Kanner, Rimland, or Asperger had in mind, but provides the potential of the possibility for a person to be diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome with only an inherent vulnerability toward obsessive behavior or addiction. It appears that the DSMIV folks or the DSMIV-TR folks did not take much focus in recognition of the potential for misdiagnosis of completely different problems.

It can take the DSM folks a long time to correct a problem; 6 years in the case of correcting the 1994 editorial error in the DSMIV for PDD NOS, that in effect technically could have resulted in a diagnosis just from restricted behavior of playing videogames.

It is worth noting that four out of the eleven children that Kanner studied had fathers that were psychiatrists; the apples don't fall that far from the tree. And, it may be at least in some cases that people on the spectrum and their parents or psychiatrists may have difficulty understanding each other, because they may be more alike than they recognize. After all, every successful social adapter, per Kanner and Asperger's original criteria, must become social scientists or psychoanalysts to understand the behavior and intentions of others.

One final note, per the article on Hans Asperger, he ticked his own boxes of diagnosis, as a child and his own condition obviously became his life long special interest, when he observed and analyzed it in others. This seems a little ironic if one gives it some thought.

Uta Frith, who translated Asperger's work, and Lorna Wing who had an autistic daughter that provided clinical research associated with it, are responsible for the recognition of Aspergers work.

Tony Atwood and Samuel Baron Cohen both studied under Uta Frith. Atwood has already recently been publicly outed by one of his associates as not a "neurotypical", and Baron Cohen ticks at least some of the newer boxes, that he in part is responsible for finding. For whatever traits they shared, they all adapted and likely would never be actually diagnosed in the real world, but they share that broader spectrum and can likely relate in ways that neither they or others can fully understand. It is likely not a full proper assessment to armchair diagnose any of these people, including Kanner, as a "neurotypical", as well as more than a few people on the DSM committee, and many in the rest of the world.


So what is autism? Most predominantly it is the inability to fully "naturally" socially connect with others, with preoccupation with objects instead of people, per the work of Aspergers and Kanner, but since then at one point in time or another, particularly from 1994 to the year 2000, with the DSMIV editorial error, it could have described almost anyone, depending on the subjective judgement of a diagnosing professional. It is no wonder that since the year 2000, 40% of parents surveyed state their children once diagnosed earlier in childhood are no longer diagnosed, per Eagan's study in 2009.


http://crackingtheenigma.blogspot.com/2011/02/exactly-how-many-ways-are-there-to-get.html