Someone came into work not long after I first went to the doctor and asked for a diagnosis. She was giving neuro diversity training. The person in question explained that people who are 'nueroligicaly diverse' are often attracted to each other because they will be excepting of each others behavour. Behavour that would be veiwed as 'strange' by others. Having dyslexia herself she smiled and said jokingly 'so we can all be strange together'.

I think that, presuming what she says is true (and it seems likely to me) the ADHD and the AS is perhaps down to the fact that people with the ADHD genes and AS genes got on and became partners.

Related question from an ignorant Aspie: is the actual severity of ASD heritable?

For instance, if an Aspie has children, does that mean their kids might be Aspie, or that their kids could be anywhere on the spectrum?

I think it's pretty much random - There's quite a few Aspies on the site that have Autistic children, and most likely vice-versa. There's also a few people that have changing functioning levels during their life, suggesting that the differences in the spectrum may be developmental or personality based, rather than genetic.

From personal experience, I think the "severity" depends on how many children your child interacts with prior to school. I interacted with almost none, so those skills didn't exist until first grade.

Really, I think it's both genetic and based on the way you grew up.

Personally, I think the severity is heritable, as I have observed a very similar pattern of developmental delay in my mother's brother, myself, and my brother.  My mother is the suspected carrier, who is somewhat (but not fully) asymptomatic.

If you had interacted with more kids prior to first grade.. how do you think your AS would have manifested, Meiloyn?

None of my grandparents were normal, all were considered to be eccentric.
My biological father is eccentric to say the least.
My mother had something wrong with her, she certainly wasn't 'normal'
One half sister is probably on the spectrum
one half brother is VERY shy & dyslexic
I am certain I am AS
My two boys are AS
My daughter thinks she has traits.
I have two nephews who are highly likely AS.

Dad was an intellectual, almost had a Master's, strong interest in history, socially reclusive (retired to thinly settled part of area between Martinsburg and Berkeley Springs WV and even then had a crane put in a mini-house behind the main house, with electric hookup, to retreat from the family too), honest to a fault, law abiding, patriotic, probably thought he was generous, and was, but came across as an a--h--- a lot (to me anyway)

His older brother retired from teaching math, nifty math sort of person, had a free come-and-go lifestyle visiting in and going out just as freely, married for first time maybe ten years ago

His younger brother retired from chemistry, unmarried.

His sister did complain about the "Marsh curse" during her divorce process before she remarried.  The brothers talk about Marsh curse like a joke.

My brother is a computer programmer with 16.5 years experience, one year of college equivalent, complains of community alienation nd sometimes romantic isolation.  Has his own unique religion, best thing to call it.

Mom seemed sociable, well educated, and in fact did qualify for and joined MENSA (for geniuses) for a short time (until listening to the male egos was too much for her), but seemed naive with regard to acquaintances neighbors et cetera who took advantage of her financially

Only I have the Asperger diagnosis but I think it runs in the family.

Uh, I don't think there are really family "curses" but I suppose it could seem that way sometimes.

My aunt is an R.N. (maybe retired), so when between divorce and remarriage she said a bitter joke about an anatomically incorrect baby born on the reservation (then living in Wisconsin), we took her seriously until the punch line.  

It was a male baby and he had a brain.  

One thing about MENSA.  Aside from listing Mom incorrectly as never married (but correctly listing two kids), the menfolk did not take her seriously about her solution to provide for children of geniuses.  Moreover, I think they liked looking at Mom, a natural blond (though I remembered her as brown and eventually brown gray) who never weighed much more than 100 pounds even when pregnant

Who would have guessed from my picture?

Hm, I was fine until I had to interact with other children. Being just about the smallest in the class meant I got bullied a lot.

Same here.  My son, however is autistic and he was interacting with other kids very early on(like 2), but still at 5 doesn't play with kids.  I think he wants to but doesn't know how.  He is nonverbal except for one word which is "bubba" which is his cousin's(about the same age as he is) nickname.  When he sees a picture of his cousin or himself he says it and asks to go see him by signing "car" and saying "Bubba".  But once we get there he doesn't play with him.  He plays in the same room as him, but doesn't actually play with him.

Our neurodiversity presents us with a set of predispositions. There is, however, a complex set of interactions between neurology and socialization which remains largely unclear to neurologists and psychiatrists.

I have Asperger's and OCD (both diagnosed). However, as a child I was grossly misdiagnosed with schizophrenia, hospitalized for a short time (at 11 years old) and given a battery of ECTs (electroconvulsive treatments) Sadly, my situation was not at all uncommon for the time (1960s).

My sister has ADHD-inattentive type, OCD, and narcolepsy (all diagnosed); while my mother (deceased) had, I suspect, serious OCD (undiagnosed) which was principally manifested in her insomnia (diagnosed), i.e., she obsessed over sounds which she expected to hear eventually.

Finally, my father has, in my view, AS (undiagnosed). As a child, I deeply resented him for how he treated me. Since concluding he has AS (which, based on my descriptions, was confirmed by my psychiatrist), I now, for the first time, feel close to him. (He is 88 years old.)

Cheers,

Mark

Interesting - I now think several members of my family show or showed ASD traits (those who are now deceased, including my dad and one of his brothers). This goes through several generations.

Mum also said she had some "odd" relatives and that her mum (now deceased too) was very phobic of things such as phones and closed rooms but was fearless when it came to protecting her family from snakes that often came into the house and the outhouses at their farm.

I'm also very phobic of phones and gastric upsets but am not scared of spiders, frogs, mice, rats, and bugs. I wonder if girls are instinctively fearful of such creatures or if they are taught to be. When some girls bullied me at primary school, I picked up a green frog and they ran away screaming (even big girls who had bashed me up - wish I'd have thought of this idea in pre-school).

Some girls in my neighbourhood accused me of giving their pets the evil eye and making them die. This was when four Spanish families moved into a block of flats across the road from us for a year or so. One of the big girls tormented me and I threw sand into her eyes so I think that's where the evil eye stuff started. She kept saying I was going to get married in a dunny can and I took major exception to that because I thought it was really going to happen (darned Aspie literal thinking).

17 people out of 54 in my family are Aspergers.

Qazi Fazli Azeem
Asperger Savant
fazliazeem.wordpress.com