Hacker News Reader

Comment by ap22213 | Hacker News Reader

I only had time to skim, but is the first myth really false?

When I was a kid in the 70s - 80s, I had never met another child with autistic like behavior. Yet, of my son's friends, two of them are clearly autistic (and diagnosed), and several of them seem on the spectrum (including my son). I also have several friends with autistic children. How could it be that it was just under diagnosed previously?

On the other hand, my parents recall me having 'autistic like' behavior until I was 5 or so. In fact, I didn't speak until I was 3. I asked my mom about this, and she said she wasn't worried because she figured that I'd speak eventually. Such a strange attitude to me as a modern parent.

View on HN

but is the first myth really true?

Does anybody take into account more modern business practices of putting tens of thousands of smart people in a small geographic area? That leads to smart people breeding with smart people which seems to be a known catalyst for spectrum disorders.

Before the mid 1900s, we didn't have mass service/technical employment (read: companies requiring "smart" employees instead of interchangeable factory labor) or ease of global relocation on a whim. You'd grow up on a farm, meet someone from your town, then settle down in your own town, and the cycle would repeat for generations.

The problem with figuring out what causes autism is not the shortage of viable theories, but the abundance. Yes, that is a well known theory that is taken into account but isn't any easier to tease out from the mass of data than anything else.

There does exist a mythology that we were all hunter gatherers until the first internet bubble, however, Harvard was founded in 1636, I have an ancestor who was an English prof there in the early 1800s, ancestors who were "in the area" for the last 400 years. We should have plenty of data from other ivies vs nearby similar sized towns without higher ed.

Apparently, diagnoses of autism has become much more valuable for parents. (at least in the Netherlands). If you don't have a the label autism, you'll have to pay for everything yourself, but with a diagnosis the (local) government will help you out with certain things. (like schooling)

Something somewhat related, the diagnosis a child gets is highly dependent on the educational level of the mother. Higher educated mothers are more likely to have a child with Aspergers then "regular" autism. The cause is probably not genetic but more likely that a "smarter" mother will try to get a better (Aspergers) diagnosis then a mother with less intellect.

Well, if you have autistic traits, then however good you are at assessing other people's demeanor nowadays, you would probably not have been good at it as a child. So maybe you DID meet other children with the same traits.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com