Aspies For Freedom

Interesting, but not very useful to the understanding of ASD's. Mice aren't human beings.

Fragile X actually isn't all that rare. About 1 in 1000 have it, I think.

Isn't there a prenatal test for Fragile X?  I will be surprised if the "cure" is ever manufactured and marketed on a large scale.  

Odd that it is reported as a cure for autism.  Due to the tendency to "divide and conquer" that the curists have, Fragile X is usually called Fragile X and not referred to as autism.  I just wonder how people with Fragile X feel about it.  Is anyone going to ask them?

Well, autistic traits is the third most common "symptom" in people with fragile x - after mental retardation and epilepsy.

So, have they found the genes for autism or not? I'd say not, on the evidence.  At any rate, guys, it seems we're the big bad Boogie Men (and women)!  Mwahahaha!
Alison

The new question is, if somebody has Fragile X, would it be very obvious that something is "very different" about them?

Or in some cases, would it only look like an ASD and therefore might be invisible?

Batman, invisible in the 21st century is impossible for an ASD - particularly when it comes to employment. It used to be, back in the good old days when jobs were more routine and we could hide in them.

I don't know - Fragile X could be the gene at the root of ASD's. If the mercury militia would just shut up we could give the real scientists the time and the chance to check that out.

Fragile X usually causes moderate-severe MR; so people with Fragile X could have a hard time speaking for themselves unless their parents/caretakers cooperated... It's easy to deny internet access and transportation and meetings to a guy who can't live on his own, after all. Anybody know whether they have advocacy groups?

(I really think we ought to link up with MR advocacy groups--they're more well-established than the autism rights movement, and probably know things we need to  learn. Also, some of them must have autistic members, since MR+autism is so common.)

"Does not seem" Dog Brain. That's what we need to have checked out. To clarify it 100 percent.

Keyword: usually.  In the cases that Fragile X does not cause any MR, what would the Fragile X person "seem" to be like?  Would he/she seem like an ASD; would he/she be able to attend college (if desired) and be seen as normal with some quirks, etc.?

I have never had clarification on this.  I believe I read the Wikipedia article a while back on Fragile X and I couldn't find anything to shed light on these questions.

The other question is, quite simply, if somebody had Fragile X without MR:  could you tell something significant is in their neurological profile, perhaps moreso than stereotypical Asperger's?

If only one could find a sponsor for that, Dog Brain!

Interesting... I don't know. I haven't heard of a case of Fragile X where it didn't cause MR. Maybe in the case of XXY genetic makeup? i'm gonna go Google it.

I'm quite aware that autism and mental retardation aren't inevitably (or even usually) connected. But they are more connected than in the NT population; so if (let's take a low estimate) 10% of autistic people are mentally retarded, even when communication difficulties causing low test scores are taken into account; then there ought to be quite a few autistic people and their families in MR societies. Of course, there will be some normal-IQ auties, too, who have been misdiagnosed as MR. And even if there were absolutely no connection between autism and MR, we could still learn from them, because they deal with the issue of disability rights just like we do.

OK, I checked it out. We need to look at females with Fragile X, for examples of Fragile X without MR. Apparently, they have only a 30% chance of ending up with IQ<70, while with males, it's almost inevitable.

The sites I've looked at (briefly) say that autistic symptoms tend to increase as the IQ decreases.

Just a shot in the dark: Does anybody on AFF have Fragile X?

Thanks for your research Callista, as I was unable to find these answers myself.  For some bizarre reason I have become paranoid in the last two nights that the "quirks" on my mother's side may have something to do with Fragile X, but the more I rationally think about it, the more I doubt it.  And clarification is a help.

Probably just a strong Asperger component on my mother's side.  I must be a massive hypochondriac or something.

It's just "Psych Major Syndrome". You learn about a new psych/mental disorder, and because most symptoms are exaggerations of normal characteristics, you immediately "diagnose"  yourself (or someone else) with most everything in the textbook!... The way to tell the difference between that and a real disorder, of course, being that a real disorder causes problems with daily life, poses a danger to you or somebody else, or causes distress for you.