The parents are under incredible amounts of stress and the mind can do some crazy things when stressed.

One concern of mine as a therapist was always the parents well-being, afterall, if one member of a family is stressed, every member of a family is stressed. Autistic children receive wonderful therapies, but sometimes the parents are forgotten. They too need therapy to deal with all of the changes a diagnosis can bring in addition to sharing a house with a child that obsesses about shapes, refuses to eat, cannot transition, perseverates on wheels, head-bangs, echoes what is said, appears to have no understanding of language or its function, just to name a few.

I certainly hope that more research is done in this area.

I find the mention of huntingtons interesting as well. It runs in my husbands family. His m grf had alzheimers…

One important consideration, these results were based only on kids who had a history of inpatient treatment. Those with a history of only outpatient treatment were not included. It is possible that the observed link between parental psychiatric history and autism applies only, or mostly, to the most severe cases of autism requiring hospitalization.

One last comment: It’s important to note that the rate of psychiatric conditions among even children with autism were very low. For example, schizophrenia was observed among 0.6% of the mothers of children with autism (compared to 0.2% of the typically developing mothers). 99.4% of the children with autism did not have mothers with schizophrenia. Therefore, the data only suggest that there may be a familial/genetic predisposition that is related to autism among very small subset of children with autism.

Thank you both. Yes, it is a lot, but I have been past dwelling on “why me” aspect for quite some time… I simply try to keep things going and live each day as close to normality as possible.

There is a silver lining in the fact that both boys are doing quite well and at this point I have every reason to expect them to be able to live independently one day.

Wow, that’s a lot—too much.

I have my own “issues” and then a year go, we were living with my in-laws—both of whom have psychiatric disorders. Anxiety, severe depression, panic attacks in MIL; my FIL has never been diagnosed.

Taking care of Charlie was much easier and Charlie was the best with his grandparents—he’d even try to jump in bed with them (they weren’t too thrilled—he just thought he was being funny—he was—and showing how much he liked them).

However, both my husband and myself would also be likely to qualify for Asperger’s. His family also does seem to have a history of personality disorders.

I participate in the support group for relatives of people with delusional disorder and among approximately 100 families there are two other families to match this pattern, parent with DD and child with autism.

So, yes, I buy that there might be genetic link. FWIW, I find my children’s autism walk in the park compared to dealing with my husband’s psychosis. He simply does not live in the same reality that I do anymore, by his own admission his life is hell and he would rather be dead and to be honest I am not sure he’ll ever again find peace in this life. Ironically, delusional disorder seems to be everything “Autism Speaks” claims autism is…