will my children have it?

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I'm not too bothered about a diagnosis for me although it would be interesting but i am very worried about my children having AS (assuming I do). There is no way I could walk up to a gp and say I think I have aspergers.
How likely are my children to have it?

In all likelyhood - - maybe.
I'm pretty certain my Dad had Asperger's (though he had never been diagnosed), and I certainly do - I have a diagnosis. And my daughter has been diagnosed with PDD-NOS, another form of autism.
The main point is, it's hardly a death sentence. And while I'll be the first to admit that I was put through hell during my childhood by bullies and cretins who thought me simple minded, in my day, no one knew what Asperger's was in this country. But now that there is a better understanding for the autistic spectrum by the educational system, I believe things will be better for my little girl.
I think you needn't worry about your future kids, either.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I don't know what the odds are, but of the three children I gave birth to: one was non-spectrum, one was very high functioning Asperger's (degree in computer science) and one had severe, non-verbal autism.

Nobody's really done the math on it yet because they have the idea that autistics don't have kids... Silly scientists.

But there's a definite higher chance. Autism is extremely heritable. Both my parents are autistic and so are two out of three of their kids, for example. We are all some variety of AS or classic autism, nothing odd... just plain autism. I think the unusual types of autism are more likely to run in families because they're more likely to be associated with specific genes rather than just having enough of a genetic load to tip you into autism territory.

I have AS and three of my four boys are on the spectrum. They are all unique in how they present and all are doing quite well at this point in time.

Hope this helps- The Doctors w/ Harvey Karp

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAR1m8G19QM[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8qhYdtoeqM&feature=related[/youtube]

The parents on the show have 7 kids three are NT and four are autistic and they are going to have one more kid in hopes it will be born NT so they will have an equal amount of NTs to autistics so each NT child will grow up to take care of one of the autistic ones. I guess it is a genetic crapshoot.

Last edited by Todesking on 10 Mar 2011, 5:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I also worry alot about this alot too my brother has Autism I think I have possibly have high functioning AS and there are others in my family that show signs of it so I think there is a chance if I had a child they could end up with it.

There's a very strong chance. As Callista said, highly heritable.

In my family, there's my dad who's autistic, my mom who has an autistic brother and some traits (BAP - Broader Autism Phenotype), me who's autistic, my brother who's autistic (specifically considered AS), and my other brother who's not autistic but has traits (BAP again). The interesting thing is that our types of autism are different from each other, and I don't mean "AS vs autism" or "HFA vs LFA" or anything like that, just that our actual sets of traits can be exact opposites from each other.

Heh, yeah, my mom and I are pretty different from each other. We'd both be diagnosed AS or PDD-NOS... but I'm language-focused, and she's not; I love theoretical stuff and logic, and she loves concrete stuff she can look at and feel; I have a huge imagination and she's much more down-to-earth; she's a lot more trusting than I am but also a lot more cynical (I'm an absolute idealist)... We just think differently. I'm apparently a lot more like my father; except he was logic-focused but not language-focused, and had a long speech delay.

You know how when you look at heritability of the entire autism spectrum, among twins it'll be 90% or higher if you just ask "Is the other identical twin on the autism spectrum somewhere?", but drops down to 60%-ish if you ask, "Does the other identical twin have the exact same ASD diagnosis?" I think maybe whether you have autism or not is extremely dependent on genetics, but the exact traits may be as individual as fingerprints.

Yeah I've often assumed that whatever autism is (for whichever person in question), it's like a seed. And depending on the conditions the seed is planted in and grows in, the tree it grows into can look entirely different (sometimes like entirely different species to an untrained observer). Imperfect analogy, but I don't know a better one. I also suspect there are people with the "autistic seed" who barely look autistic at all and would never in a million years get diagnosed or suspected, simply because their particular shape of "tree" has never been part of the outward descriptions of autism that prevail in the literature. I sometimes suspect that's what some of the twins where one is diagnosable and one isn't, are experiencing. There are probably forms of autism that have literally never been recorded as such, because while they have the innate traits of autism, the autistic people in question lack the outward behaviors pretty much at all. And since diagnosis is entirely behavior-based... yeah. And I'm not talking here about autistic people who are "passing for normal". I mean autistic people who really and truly fall into at least one category of what's currently considered normal, and yet who possess the inner "seed" of autism and perceive the world like autistic people do. I suspect that if there's ever a true physical (or even cognitive-skill-type) test for autism, people like this will be found, and if examined closely (instead of just brushed off as "false positives") it will completely change how people think about autism.

Seems to be. I'm not diagnosed but I see it in myself and many of the men on my father's side.

Also Mike Burry, the financial guy, and his son both have diagnosed AS.

my children are too young to show AS at the moment.
I agree it isnt the worst thing to have and for anyone else I would think it isnt that big a deal but I want MY children to be happy, confident and soiciable so I do hope they dont have as because i dont think it offers the happiest school experience.

I know many won't understand, but this is one of many, many reasons why I don't want children.

I would if I was able to earn a descent wage. My father and mother raised me but I feel having a lot distractions that a good paying job were able to provide made my life more pleasant when I was away from school. But since I am dirt poor there is no way I would try to bring a child into the world especially having a good chance I could pass onto the child Aspergers. Having things like video games, dirt bikes, swimming pool, action figures, and roleplaying games made my childhood less miserable when I got home from school providing me with some santuary from my tormentors. If I grew up with parents who could not provide for me would have made my horrible existance worst without no reprieve from the hate.

Interesting and accurate analogy! Seed=Gene(s)! The basic rules for all types of genes is that some of them are expressed in certain circumstances (seemingly random)

An Aspie/Autistic clearly has autistic genes. But also, a person can be a carrier of the gene(s), but not express them and be NT.

I have read about autistic identical twin studies (for practical purposes they are clones! 100% Genetically identical!). In 90% of cases if one twin is on the spectrum, the other will be as well. The interesting thing is that in 10% of the cases (Again, 100% Genetically identical!) the same autism gene(s) that placed their identical twin on the spectrum were either on or off at the appropriate time to develop into an NT!

Why? No one can answer that one precisely. But the best explanation that I can give is that there is an element of randomness to genetics since in the above case both twins originated from the same sperm/egg embryo.

As to the original poster, my answer is probably. But as with the above example there is no 100% guarantee one way or the other.

Source: I am an Aspie, and about 1 year away from finishing my PhD in cell biology/neuroscience. Hope to be a post doc studying autistic mice brains after I graduate!

I understand, and feel the same way. I would never get seriously romantically involved with a woman who does not hold the same perspective. As much as I want to get married and have a partner, if I was with a woman that wanted kids one of us would end up unhappy because we would either not have children or have children. That wouldn't be fair to either me or her.