The genetic landscape of autism

CSHL Professor Michael Wigler discusses 20 years of research to paint a complete picture of the genetic causes of autism.

[JamieHumeCreative]

I find the neurotypical view of communication and what it is to be human very misleading when it comes to Autistics. This gives me pause to be very concerned regarding the view of the Autistic mind as being diseased or impaired. The Neurotypical mind is also impaired. My brain perceives more colours than the average person. More nuances in light and shadow, more variations in tints and shades. I can justly say that from my perspective which I find vastly preferable, the average person is Colour Perception Impaired. Instead, I am the one considered an oddity, a chimera, a mutated freak of nature. The evolution of all living beings depends upon mutation. Mutations alone are not bad or good, They are opportunities. Additionally, I don;t really see these as true mutations. The Autistic brain has been with us for how long? Recognized and unrecognized. Perhaps we were once even the majority. Mechanically minded, .superior hunter gatherers, able to invent and repair. Diversity leads to over all resilience, and adaptability of a species.
Girls and none white people in general, are simply under diagnosed. It's a social issue, not a biological issue. The majority right now, are exactly as the Zebra metaphor reflects. If all the Zebras look and act the same, they are ambiguous and protected within the herd. The lame, the zebra who is born without stripes or born with a reverse pattern or an extra colour in it's coat, stands out to predators. Within the human herd, difference is threatening and held in an irrational place of inherent bias.
To paraphrase Temple Granden, it;s the Neurotypicals that where sitting around the campfire like Social Butterflies while the NDs were out identifying herbs, observing behaviours and changes in nature, experimenting with potions, hunting and gathering that allowed you to survive. The way things are going, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we end up in that position again.
We are assets, not liabilities. Autism is not it's co-morbidities.
To place the Autistic as diseased and or inferior, is morally and ethically wrong and incorrect. Why are you focusing in on co-morbidities? Because you want it to be made out to be disease so that you can eliminate it not only with acceptance but with encouragement and cheers of hoorah! Are we really a liability, and a threat to humanity? Or are we just zebras, of a different stripe that he other zebras shun out of fear? We are not broken until you break us. Perhaps look into researching average as to why it is so vicious, has a propensity for lying and cheating, and why it fear change and difference in irrational ways.
I strongly suspect that ethics came about via Autistic minds!!! It had to. IN fact I sometimes sense from some people, that they would rather a computer did what it was told for them when it comes to the inventive, observational insights, and true creative works of humanity. Because they have a greater possibility of controlling it. It;s not as hard and oppressing us in order to maintain the status quo.

[light]

Thanks so much for this explanation. I work with autistic preschoolers. They are very interesting kids, particularly when they somehow just know how to read before anyone teaches them. When they are nonverbal, though, it is so sad, because they have so much difficulty just understanding others and getting others to understand them. Amazing at times and devastating at other times.

[alntqt]

I dont know if this idea will reach the scientist but... did you analysed the relashionship between blood types in the mother, father and fetus? Also about the stress of the mother during pregnancies and also if the effect of a autistic fetus have on the gestation itself? (easy or hard gestation?)

[distortingjack]

There is so much recent research that for some reason this person seems unaware of. Research on heritability (turns out it's highly heritable, but older family members are most often undiagnosed or part of the Broader Autism Phenotype), research on neural pruning and early development differences, which can be affected by gendered upbringing, even in infancy (turns out that women have autism too, but the symptoms look different because they are socialised differently and driven to mask since childhood) – never mind the outdated pathologising view and terms for it.
It's strange, since the data is widely available, from reputable publications (Cambridge Uni, Nature, etc) and often uncontroversial.
Then again, even Simon Baron-Cohen, the famous autism researcher, wasn't made aware of a lot of recent findings and theories on the Double Empathy Problem, masking, and symptoms in women until shockingly recently, so there seems to be an academic insularity problem on this topic for some reason.

[NeverEver]

As a high IQ female autist I am totaly against preventing autism. What we should aim is to prevent bad health that can lead to low IQ. If there is a higher mutation rate in autism it's very obvious that the error correction mechanism is turned down. We already have seen that as a purposefull act on the side of the immune system. And I think it's pretty easy to see why it was turned off.

[notleeqwq]

Both of my parents are on the spectrum and my siblings and I are also on the spectrum.
So I was kinda under the impression that it was genetic.

[lauraboothdesignfreelanceg]

This is clearly a neurotypical person. So frustrating.

[livenotbylies]

A better question is how do you fix non-autistic people

[_victimclasspreycitizen]

Find the "cuteness" gene. In dogs. Find it. Not just "big eyes" or "waggily tails", but "cuteness" as defined officially by a task force sub-committee of 10 little girls. Then when you found the cute dog gene, use the same standards the girls made and find the "cute" gene in human boys. Then you can work on "autism".