Autism has strong biological contributing factors. The mirror neurons seem to be weaker than the average person. You don’t have much interest in people relative to things, and you don’t learn to read people at pre-verbal ages. That undermines social skills dramatically.
Aspergers/ASD can be defined as autism plus high enough IQ to learn intellectually what others learned before they could really communicate verbally.
Risk factors for autism include:
* premature birth, the earlier the greater the odds of problems
* a father who is strong on systemic thinking
If you’re a preemie, the brain development is cut short by the need to live. Increased odds of learning disabilities and mental retardation. And autism.
If Dad is an uber-nerd, that doesn’t mean you lack social skills, but if you get a double dose of the genes, the odds of ASD and autism go up. Part of the reason we see more of it today is because the very nerdy types who would have been bookish monks 200 years ago make a fortune in Big Tech and get married. Michael Burry of “the Big Short” is a classic case of this - including his autistic son.
Assortive mating - nerdy types hooking up in Silicon Valley and the international equivalents - is probably a factor, too.
And then there is the rediagnosis craze. The kid in the corner with behavioral issues isn’t “retarded”, he’s labeled as autistic. More money and services that way. OK, reclassify more as autistic to get them more services.
Interesting stuff.
I think that infection (such as influenza or measles) during pregnancy is also a risk factor for some brain disorders.
I can’t help but think that we are selecting for and against certain traits with our use of modern medicine.
For example, premature babies now survive who would have died even 50 years ago, meaning that whatever traits they carry which cause them to be premature are not eliminated from the gene pool. Abortion, on the other hand, is actively removing those whose genetic configurations allow them to override maternal instinct (and what else do those genes being weeded out do?). IVF is allowing infertile couples to reproduce despite genetics that should have prevented it; will the genetic configurations that cause infertility eventually become so prevalent that couples who can reproduce naturally become aberrations?
I won’t say that modern medicine is bad, but I wonder what we are doing to the gene pool with some of the practices.