Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
I'm glad I missed this when it first happened, LOL. There are many, MANY varying degrees of autism. My teenager is autistic. He has a 3.0 gpa, he drives a car, he is an athlete, he has a job. Our neighbor boy is also autistic, he is 12 years old and cannot be unattended for a matter of minutes without hurting himself. He is a joyful child, actually, if you take a moment to look at the world through his eyes instead of your own. Can I see that in my own son there could be benefits, depending which way the world goes, to the way he views the world? Yes, I actually can. Do I feel the same way about our neighbor boy? Absolutely not. He cannot function on his own, my son can with guidance and direction. Do I think as his mom I had anything to do with his autism? Nope. He was raised pretty much the same way as his 2 brothers, who are not autistic, not to mention after our son was born and we knew something wasn't right but it took a long time to get a diagnosis...shortly after his dad was diagnosed as well. He also drove a car, had a job etc and had a very high IQ.
I think there is a lot more to autism than we are even beginning to understand. But to make a claim that parents are at fault for their child's autism is horrible.
I'm not clear on what you mean by that topic. Should I be telling my son not to get married and have children? Or should I be teaching him what his strengths and weaknesses are, and pointing out the difficulties he might have in relationships and teaching him to make smart decisions about such things? I doubt we know enough about it at this point to make assumptions even generally. I do know several autistic adults who, upon knowing what is going on with them, do very much second guess having children, getting married, or living "normal" lives because of the challenges they bring to the table in regards to living what society deems a normal life. The problem is the vast majority of high functioning autistic adults still remain undiagnosed and do not even know that they are at risk for "passing on" their autism to potential children until their children are diagnosed, they learn more about it, relate, and get diagnosed themselves.
But that is no different than any other possible problem you could pass on. I had 3 alcoholic grandparents. My family and my husbands family abound with autoimmune disorders like allergies, asthma and lupus. Should we not have had our son because of those risks, thinking ahead of time that perhaps he would develop T1 diabetes? Of course not. Is it fun having 2 children who face significant challenges? Not always. But they bring a light to the world that would not be here if they were absent due to our fears of "spreading" what might be considered a bad trait.
No, @karasti. I am just addressing the OP's question of whether we are evolving to be more autistic. That would only happen via natural selection based on what I know of biology.
Comments
Can I see that in my own son there could be benefits, depending which way the world goes, to the way he views the world? Yes, I actually can. Do I feel the same way about our neighbor boy? Absolutely not. He cannot function on his own, my son can with guidance and direction. Do I think as his mom I had anything to do with his autism? Nope. He was raised pretty much the same way as his 2 brothers, who are not autistic, not to mention after our son was born and we knew something wasn't right but it took a long time to get a diagnosis...shortly after his dad was diagnosed as well. He also drove a car, had a job etc and had a very high IQ.
I think there is a lot more to autism than we are even beginning to understand. But to make a claim that parents are at fault for their child's autism is horrible.
But that is no different than any other possible problem you could pass on. I had 3 alcoholic grandparents. My family and my husbands family abound with autoimmune disorders like allergies, asthma and lupus. Should we not have had our son because of those risks, thinking ahead of time that perhaps he would develop T1 diabetes? Of course not. Is it fun having 2 children who face significant challenges? Not always. But they bring a light to the world that would not be here if they were absent due to our fears of "spreading" what might be considered a bad trait.