# autisic kids **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [December 2, 2016, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autisic-kids/773622 "2016-12-02T10:08:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2016, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autisic-kids/773622/1 "2016-12-02T10:08:51Z")
> **[Are there more autistic kids around now?](https://www.straightdope.com/21344412/are-there-more-autistic-kids-around-now)** As some one whos disabled and related to autistic people i’m surprised the master didn’t mention the fact that they don’t hide handicapped kids as much as they used to … When I was a child most severely handicapped kids went to homes or boarding schools and such these days there’s financial incentives (in calif there’s the IHSS program and nurses and such are paid for ) in not shipping your kid off although there were still several I knew of back then So there’s not really more of them ya just see them most often ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2016, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autisic-kids/773622/2 "2016-12-02T10:20:09Z")
**Moderator Action** Looks like you intended this to go in Comments on Cecil’s Columns/Staff Reports. I’ll move it there for you (from About This Message Board). ---
**Author:** ![delius1967](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@delius1967](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delius1967)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2016, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autisic-kids/773622/3 "2016-12-02T16:56:54Z")
Stephanie Seneff isn’t just an anti-GMO quack, she’s also a vaccines-cause-autism quack, which pretty much tells you how seriously you should take anything she says, _i.e._ not at all. Read [Orac’s takedown of her](http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/11/20/dumpster-diving-in-the-vaers-database-again/) for the gory details. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2016, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autisic-kids/773622/4 "2016-12-02T17:37:56Z")
Actually, I’d like to commend Cecil for the update. [His last column on the topic](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3154/how-did-autism-become-the-latest-fad-disorder), I felt, could easily lead to the impression that it _was_ just an over-diagnosed fad, when those of us living with ASD children can tell you it’s real. On re-read of that column, I can see that he did try to soften that a bit by mentioning that over-diagnosis would hurt real efforts to look for causes. Overall, though, I thought it was lost in the language about sorting for future computer programmers. This column made it much clearer that there is an actual disorder, people are doing actual work looking for causes, and it felt much more objective (and less dismissive). ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2016, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autisic-kids/773622/5 "2016-12-02T18:43:17Z")
I think we need to be clear on the definition of a disability … a condition that prevents an individual from performing a basic life function … for example dressing themselves, bathing themselves or preparing their own meals without assistance … someone with one arm may have a hell of a time dressing, thus they are disabled; whereas someone with one kidney can easily dress themselves, they are not disabled … A child has the basic life function of sitting in a classroom with other students and learn the lesson being presented without assistance; if a child cannot do this, they are disabled … however, the child will grow into an adult and this basic life function changes to finding and keeping a job without assistance; if the child-now-adult _can_ do this, they are not longer disabled … As every color of the rainbow exists on the spectrum, so to does every person exist on the autism spectrum … unless of course each and every one of their brain cells are perfectly formed and perfectly healthy … for someone like _Rainman_, the autism is obvious … for someone like Albert Einstein, not so much (urban legend has it that someone had to check to make sure he wasn’t wearing house slippers outside in a blizzard) … and for you, there’s no signs of autism at all (except that _really_ annoying habit of yours keeping the salt shaker to the right of the pepper shaker) … ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2016, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autisic-kids/773622/6 "2016-12-02T19:37:28Z")
One sentence that made me raise my eyebrows was: > [@The Perfect Master](#): > > Scientists have long studied autism in twins — the basic idea being that if identical twins (who share all their genes) are significantly more likely to both have ASD than fraternal twins ( **who share only half** ), that tells us something about the genetics-environment relationship. (Bolding mine) Um, no. While identical twins _do_ have identical genes, there is nothing that says fraternal twins share exactly (or even approximately) half. Fraternal twins are just siblings that happened to be born at the same time, and like any pair of siblings, they might share a large number of genes with their fellow sib or not so many. It all depends on where the chromosomal crossover points were in the [meiosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiosis) I stage of gamete production. We’ve all seen brothers and/or sisters that look very much like alike and also where they are so different, there are jokes about the milkman. What fraternal twins do share is an identical environment in the womb, and after (that smelter shut down at age three for both as an example). ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Motion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@Slow\_Motion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Motion)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2016, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autisic-kids/773622/7 "2016-12-04T07:07:17Z")
Desert Dog: While you are correct that theoretically two siblings can share considerably less than 50% of their genes, in reality they almost always share very close to half, so I’ll go will Cecil on this one. Well over 99% of siblings share between 46 and 54% of their genes. It’s just a matter of probability. There are so many genes, and so many crossing-over points, that it’s like flipping 10,000 coins. You’re going to be real close to 50-50. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2016, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autisic-kids/773622/8 "2016-12-04T14:34:31Z")
> [@Slow\_Motion](#): > > Desert Dog: While you are correct that theoretically two siblings can share considerably less than 50% of their genes, in reality they almost always share very close to half, so I’ll go will Cecil on this one. Well over 99% of siblings share between 46 and 54% of their genes. It’s just a matter of probability. There are so many genes, and so many crossing-over points, that it’s like flipping 10,000 coins. You’re going to be real close to 50-50. But you’re not flipping 10,000 coins, you’re flipping 23 of them. Granted, even 23 coin tosses is going to have a pretty high peak at the 50% mark but the bell curve is going to be broader than 10k tosses. I went looking to see if I could find a graph but none of the sites I found had any and were coy about estimating the percentages. Most of them had something like: Average shared: 50% — Range: Varies by specific relationship Very frustrating. Also, as one of the sites pointed out, over 90% of the human genome is identical (nobody has ears on their neck) so a lot of the crossover points nearby each other will have the same result anyway. Do you have a cite for your 46 - 54 share? ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2016, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autisic-kids/773622/9 "2016-12-04T15:00:15Z")
**Slow Motion** is using the Law of Large Numbers … as the number of trials gets larger and larger, the odds of an average of the results also gets larger and larger. I use this in casinos all the time … if we bet ‘black’ on the (North American) roulette wheel … our averages over 5 spins will be all over the place … however, our averages over a thousand spins will be very close to the 9/19 that’s calculated … Thus, we could find a great difference between one set of twins … but if the scientific study uses dozens of twins, then the researches will have very close to the 50% split as calculated … and it’s common for researches to throw out the ‘outliers’. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2016, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autisic-kids/773622/10 "2016-12-04T16:31:15Z")
> [@Sunny\_Daze](#): > > Actually, I’d like to commend Cecil for the update. > > [His last column on the topic](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3154/how-did-autism-become-the-latest-fad-disorder), I felt, could easily lead to the impression that it _was_ just an over-diagnosed fad, when those of us living with ASD children can tell you it’s real. I don’t see anything in the previous or current column even hinting at “overdiagnosis”. He does reiterate that a great deal of the increase in ASD diagnoses is due to changed criteria (while noting that a recent revision in criteria has resulted in at least localized decreases in reported autism cases). Stephanie Seneff has not only strayed from her field - she’s used very poor research methods to hype a variety of crank theories. They include one recent gem (co-authored by a Registered Holistic Nutritionist) which blames concussions on GMOs and glyphosate. > **[Seneff Claims GMOs Cause Concussions](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/seneff-claims-gmos-cause-concussions/)** > > You read that headline correctly.Stephanie Seneff first came to skeptical attention when she published a study claiming that vaccines were linked to autism. She trolled through the VAERS databas ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autisic-kids/773622/11 "2016-12-05T04:51:09Z")
What the hell is Slug’s drawing about? A monkey with 8 fingers? I know there’s not a lot to go on in the article, but usually each aspect of the drawing draws (:/) from something mentioned in the article. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autisic-kids/773622/12 "2016-12-05T09:49:28Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > [Are there more autistic kids around now? - The Straight Dope](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3317/are-there-more-autistic-kids-around-now) > > When I was a child most severely handicapped kids went to homes or boarding schools and such […] > So there’s not really more of them ya just see them most often When I was a kid living in the grounds of such a large institution, we didn’t generically call them “autistic”. They were handicapped or mentally retarded. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autisic-kids/773622/13 "2016-12-05T11:46:50Z")
I’m 63 and have Aspberger’s Syndrome. It wasn’t spotted until I was 55, when I thought I might have it and asked my doctor for a diagnosis. ---
**Author:** ![seal\_cleaner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@seal\_cleaner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seal_cleaner)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2016, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autisic-kids/773622/14 "2016-12-08T04:13:44Z")
> [@glee](#): > > I’m 63 and have Aspberger’s Syndrome. > It wasn’t spotted until I was 55, when I thought I might have it and asked my doctor for a diagnosis. My son was diagnosed at 28. ---
**Author:** ![doreet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bc8723/32.png) [@doreet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreet)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2016, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autisic-kids/773622/15 "2016-12-10T15:49:18Z")
ALRIGHT; I read of a very famous cases(s) of severe autism.They all had this in common; all of the kid’s parents (at least one parent to each child) lived close around the factory of the old famous Sun-glasses factory, “Ray-Ban”. (Well before it went bankrupt, and the NAME was bought by others)This was during the 50’s, The parents that lived close to the old sunglasses factory, had waded in the creek,stream,that was around that factory. ALL OF THOSE KiDS, GREW UP, HAD VERY AUTISTIC KIDS. They could not have “normal” kids. They finally narrowed this Autistic circle down to, yes, all the kids getting in pollution-creek, most probably from that pollution from the Ray-Ban factory.It had nothing to do with polio=shots, or other types of childhood shots. These have NOT BEEN the only "autism-circles " found.Pollution of a child’s environment, and thus, his ability to breed normally, as an adult, has been found to have more to do with Autism, (espec. very severe autism) than childhood shots. Not getting a child vaccines has resulted in counties and states making it illegal for non-vacinated kids to attend schools.With good reason! Your unvaccinated child goes to school, and endangers a huge pool of younger kids who are too young for shots yet.–and it kills them.Which is why,many states are refusing to let unvaccinated kids attend public schools. I can tell you about “pre-polio-vaccine-times”; I was made to stay at home,by parents, instead of going to kindergarden, because there were no polio vaccines yet, all the young kids were dying, losing ability to walk,ending up in “iron-lungs” ; it was scary. KIDS WERE DYING LIKE FLIES FROM POLIO! The first polio vaccines came, ALL THE KIDS GOT THEM,we were so thankful! Even so, it was so close, my sister’s best friend still got polio, and could not walk.She went thru lots of painful phys. therapy, did walk; but the polio hit her, in her 60’s, she ended up in a wheel chair.She died, not able to walk. Our parents THANKED GOD, AND SALK, FOR THE POLIO VACCINE. WITHOUT IT, many of we young kids would have died. I don’t think you want to see so many little kids dead–cause some parents eschew vaccines. Some of those old, child-killing diseases are coming back. I advise you vaccinate your kid. ---
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2016, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/autisic-kids/773622/16 "2016-12-10T16:31:43Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > But you’re not flipping 10,000 coins, you’re flipping 23 of them. Granted, even 23 coin tosses is going to have a pretty high peak at the 50% mark but the bell curve is going to be broader than 10k tosses. That’s ignoring crossovers, which happens pretty much every time meiosis occurs, increasing the variability among gametes. (Of course, you’re no longer talking coin tosses here. There’s many places crossover could occur on a single chromosome pair.) Fraternal twin studies are good, because: 1. You can be reasonably sure the children are full siblings with approximately 50% of the other sibling’s variable DNA. 2. They are usually raised in a very similar environment (eg same household) and you don’t have to “correct” for differences caused by age.