I don't know exactly what he's trying to point out since he's all over the map, but I have an autistic nephew. He was born perfectly normal and at about 2 years of age, something changed. There was no reason (outwardly) for the change, but there was a definite change. By the time he was 5, he needed help doing things that a child his age should be able to do. The child is now in his early 20s and through a lot of work and help, he is high functioning.
I don't have any idea what could cause this in children but I think there's a trigger that brings out this condition. Something the child is born with but is triggered (somewhat like cancer) to activate in the child's body. Is it a predetermined gene? Maybe.
Is it environmental, maybe, but I find that highly unlikely. Hold onto your hats, because this is one of Bullgear's way of the world ideas.
I believe that each parent brings to the child's makeup a gene or genes that when combined with their spouses gene makeup, predetermines the child's chance of Autism. I believe this is why there are so many degrees of autism. The mixture of genes from both parents will determine the degree of the condition. It's possible that each parent will not show any indication of the condition, but with the combination of both set of genes triggers this condition in the child. However that doesn't take into consideration that sibling show no form of this condition.
I would like to say that this condition will be eradicated by research, but I don't really believe that.
My son was one of the popular kids, lots of friends, a typical boy up until the day we can pin point he wasnt.
He changed like a light switch had been flicked and suffered anxiety to the point he wouldnt do school, stopped going out without parents, couldnt play baseball because he thought he would die.
He was diagnosed with PANDAS which they surmise is the result of a leaky blood brain barrier and the body's immune system attacks the amygdala/limbic system and causes either "fight or flight" anxiety or tics and OCD disorders.
He had 4-5 repetitive bouts of strep within a two month period and that is thought to play a roll in ramping up the immune system into a frenzy to attack healthy structures.....but still why the leaky blood/brain barrier thats supposed to be level 100 ballistic proof?
My daughters Type I diabetic.
Who knows, maybe my wife and I just suck as a genetic match but than you start talking to other people and hear of similar afflictions and I remember my own childhood and think "We never had any of this shit".
Something changed.
Some of it is our sucky society......if Einstein were born today he in his weirdness would have been medicated into nothingness. Some people are just weird or different perhaps due to being advanced in other ways than the norm. Yet people want to lable them and get them into a lifetime of pharma.
But some shit is medical/environmental.
Both kids seemed to have a lot of strep/ear infections when young that had us seeing pink amoxicillin in the fridge more often than not.
I wonder if that frequent antibiotic use played a roll.....again I never remember going through that as a kid or having my friends experience it. Strep is no joke and needs treatment but it must not have been so prevalent or stronger immune systems handled it better. ear aches were treated with ear drops in my day not antibiotics.
I dont know maybe as an "afflicted" person Im just more attuned to it and numbers have not changed.