Aspies For Freedom

Hmm, quite a few things in this article seem wrong.

The recent rise in autism may have been driven by the tendency of like-minded engineers, physicists, mathematicians and other "systemizers" to marry each other, according to a Cambridge University professor.

Why would there be an increase in like minded people marrying all of a sudden? Enough to supposedly cause a huge leap in autism? Haven't people usually married someone that they have shared interests with?

Around one child in every 100 - mostly males

This figure jumps around a huge deal, 1% of children, yet mostly males, what does that really mean??

He has uncovered clues that suggest that when systemizers marry they have a higher risk of having children with autism.

Probably because some of them are aspies or have strong traits.

And he believes that systemizers are also more attracted to each other than one would expect by chance, due to what he calls "assortative mating".

Not a romantic way to put it, hehe, I would prefer to say that those in a minority group have a tendency to pair up.

Systemizers feel more comfortable in the company of each other rather than that of what he calls empathizers. "We have found clues in a range of studies we have conducted since 1997 that assortative mating is going on."


I'm living it.  :smile:

According to a survey of 1,000 members of the National Autistic Society, fathers and grandfathers of children with autistic spectrum conditions are twice as likely to work in a systemizing profession such as engineering.

I took part in that survey, my father was an engineer and was an aspie.

When all the evidence is taken together it suggests a genetic cause of autism, with both parents contributing genes that ultimately relate to a similar kind of mind: one with an affinity for thinking systematically.


Logical.

Prof Baron-Cohen says the rise in autism could be driven because assortative mating is becoming easier: recent years have seen a rise in mobility, an increase in the employment prospects of systemizers - notably in the computer industry - and a rise in the numbers of women studying mathematics, engineering and other systemizing subjects at university, where they are more likely to come into contact with systemizing men.

Personally I dont think that the increase is due to that alone, but more that its the increased diagnosis, 'aspergers syndrome' wasnt begun to be diagnosed before the late 80s/early 90s.

In Asperger syndrome, the person is always at least average in IQ, and may be well above average, and talked on time as a toddler.  

But some of us were diagnosed as aspies and did have a language delay.
A survey was taken on one site, and a third of diagnosed aspies had a language delay. But I feel that if a diagnostician is presented with an adult who has good use of language, and covers the criteria for AS, they are not going to diagnose that person with autism just because they had a language delay as a child. They seem to still diagnose with AS.

I read it to mean that somehow the boys have managed to produce offspring assexually  :shock:

No, perhaps not! :grin:  May be more likely that girls are Aspies just as often as the boys, but our language and social skills (these being "female brain" skills to current thinking) mask all but the most extreme cases, so we have either no diagnoses or diagnoses later in life (or even misdiagnoses).

And maybe we tend to marry NTs who either have AS in their families and so are more understanding, or marry NTs with more tolerant natures.  I hadn't realised until I answered on another thread how many people in Vernu's family could probably be considered "Aspie", although since they are in high-status jobs (all the males are engineers, Vernu has a B.Sc. from the Australian National University, and several of his sisters are accountants) they are just politely referred to as "eccentric" and left to get on with it!

Alison

Amy commented

In Asperger syndrome, the person is always at least average in IQ, and may be well above average, and talked on time as a toddler.

But some of us were diagnosed as aspies and did have a language delay.
A survey was taken on one site, and a third of diagnosed aspies had a language delay. But I feel that if a diagnostician is presented with an adult who has good use of language, and covers the criteria for AS, they are not going to diagnose that person with autism just because they had a language delay as a child. They seem to still diagnose with AS.

I would guess the Telegraph and BBC News science writers have written their reports partly on the basis of Baron-Cohen's new paper, and partly on stock background material they hold on file, which will inevitably have to contain generalizations and simplifications to explain the picture to the general reader in a few dozen words.

Well technically the DSM criteria does state that there should be no language delay for a dx of aspergers, so that point is right. But in practice it doesn't seem to work like that.

And the World Health Organisation's ICD-10 criteria for Asperger's Syndrome call it "A disorder of uncertain nosological validity" and stress the differences and doubts about the American DSM classification.

No, in former times there were more arranged marriages. It's only a hundred years or so, that people can marry who they want to - at least in our culture.

Might have been different, depending on the social status one had.

Sibylle

Sibylle, I think Amy is referring  to the kind of beliefs held by some pro-cure groups in the United States, who claim there has been a rise of 2,500% in the incidence of autism in the last ten years.

Yay!  Let's keep up the good work, guys :lol:
Alison

As Stella said, in the last ten years there has been a huge rise in diagnosis which I dont see being explained by simply like minded couples marrying.

No, that's probably because of better diagnosis.