I can't tell you how grateful I am for your input on this. I am forced to learn some of this stuff incidentally as I go along, and this kind of input is so helpful. I think I remember something from the Stanford study that sounds redolent of what you're sharing, but I can't remember what it was.
Did you know that there is a "true" genetic autism that is X-linked? It's called "fragile X," and the one child I know with that condition is a male. The mother was in her late 30s when she had him (lost his twin just before delivery) and had been a patient in an infertility clinic. Her personality reminded me tremendously of my mother-in-law, who I also suspect of carrying the weakness; she is related to the NASA fluid dynamics engineer. My engineer-type husband, who has the visible form of her invisible retinal condition that one of our sons (non-autistic) also has -- known in the past as "lazy eye" -- has theorized that there is something genetic in the brain's mapping common to that condition and the autistic weakness gene(s), and I believe that to be true because over and over I have found that there is concomitant lazy eye in non-autistic members of families with autistics. I don't know what to make of it; I just sense there is a connection.
Again, thanks so much!
There is definitely a conenction between lazy eye (strabismus) and fragile X syndrome (while fragile X is not "autism" but rather retardation, a significant percentage 15-20% are also autistic). Google is our friend -- use Google advanced search to search for the phrase "lazy eye" and the word "autism", or better yet (for more scientific stuff) the words strabismus and autism -- you'll get plenty of hits.
http://www.autism.org/fragilex.html