Autism-World

The fact that the concordance rate (likelihood that if one is autistic, the other is too) for identical twins is somewhere between 60 to 80% and only 6% in fraternal twins indicates that genetics is a MAJOR factor – just not the ONLY factor.

Apparently one doesn’t inherit autism as much as they inherit a vulnerability to autism. Something “triggers” autism in such children. Something which would not trigger autism in one without the genetic vulnerability.

Many professionals (such as Geraldien Dawson, PhD & S. Ozzonoff, PhD of the M.I.N.D. institute) believe more than one gene is involved. They believe at least 5 genes “collide” to create the vulnerability for autism.

Technorati : autism

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 23rd, 2007 at 8:19 pm and is filed under What is Autism.