I have aspergers what are the chances of my future children inheriting it?

Question

I have aspergers what are the chances of my future children inheriting it?

Answer 1

I don't think anyone has put a number to it, but there is a genetic component:

"It appears that parents who have one child with autism are at slightly increased risk for having more than one child with autism. This also suggests a genetic link. However, autism does not appear to be due to one particular gene. If autism, like eye color, were passed along by a single gene, more family members would inherit the disorder. NIMH grantees, using state-of-the-art gene splicing techniques, are searching for irregular segments of genetic code that the autistic members of a family may have inherited."

http://www.support4hope.com/autism/autis...

More information at:

http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/showthre...

http://www.nlmfoundation.org/grants/gene...

Answer 2

Current research is finding a genetic link to autism.  However, having children is always a gamble. If you want kids, go for it.

All the best.

Answer 3

I can only give you my experience and educated opinion on the subject.  Asperger's is part of the autistic spectrum.  Autistic spectrum disorders are autoimmune in nature.  Therefore the risk is not just for an autistic spectrum disorder.  Having 1 autistic spectrum child greatly increases the chance of another.  Kennedy krieger gives the statistics of having a second autistic spectrum child as 28%.  Having a third autistic spectrum child after having 2 the chances skyrocket and are more likely than not.  In my experience of moving in the autism world it is slightly higher than that.

It will depend on how thoroughly affected your family is.  Are there family members with colitis, ADHD, bipolar, dyslexia, PDD, allergies, asthma, eczema, giftedness alcoholism?  It will also depend on what family history is like for your spouse.

In my case, I have 3 sons, 2 are autistic spectrum, the youngest is not but is afflicted with other autoimmune disorders.

If you marry someone not so afflicted I would say the chance of some autoimmune issue to be 50% (this is just my opinion), and for an autistic spectrum disorder around 25%.  That is a 1 in 4 shot, so if you were to have 4 children I would say that odds are you would have 1 that is autistic spectrum.  The chances out of 4 kids in my opinion, 2 would have some issue.

Both sides of my family are very affected by autoimmune disorders.  I fully expected all 3 sons to have multiple of what is listed above, and it remains to be seen as to what there afflictions really are.

My father is aspergers (hyperlexia age 3, gifted, recovered alcoholic).  He married my mother who is bipolar (severe allergies).  My parents have 4 children, 1 is PDD.NOS (brother also gifted, severe allergies), 2 dyslexic (me and sis, both severe allergies, I am gifted), and 1 ADHD (brother, gifted).  Also my sis only child is PDD.NOS, my niece is 3.

My husband is bipolar, so is his sis, he has 1 brother with severe colitis, and 1 sis severely autistic.  His family is loaded with giftedness, allergies, alcoholism, and bipolar.

Our youngest has severe allergies and eczema.  Our middle son has PDD.NOS and some asperger features (he is only 2 and will probably grow into the asperger dx)

The oldest is PDD.NOS, and it is speculated that he is bipolar (he is 7)

The chances of asperger's or any autistic spectrum disorder being inherited is complex, it is not simply 50% chance like so many disorders including bipolar and dyslexia.

Answer 4

There are no guarantees of any certainty with Asperger syndrome. It does however have some genetic link but no one can at the moment predict whether anyone will inherit it or not. My father has Asperger syndrome and so do two of my children, but I don't have it and neither do my other children. Until we know more about autistic spectrum disorders it is impossible to predict who will get it and who won't.