04.09.07
The Future Is For Everyone (Or At Least, It Should Be)
Anne C.: The Future Is For Everyone (Or At Least, It Should Be)
(»Recently, a short informational article was posted to the IEET site entitled, Autism Bad For Siblings And Society in response to an autism-spectrum-themed issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. This article referenced two studies: one on social and communication “problems” in siblings of autistic children, and one on the expenses incurred by autistic individuals over the course of their lifetime.
The article about siblings seems to indicate mainly that siblings of autistics can have autistic traits (or perhaps even be autistic themselves), which of course makes sense when you consider that autism has a strong genetic component. The characterization of this phenomenon as autism being “bad for siblings” is more than a bit misleading — it’s not as if, somehow, if the autistic sibling hadn’t been born, the children being studied would not have exhibited the same social and communication patterns. If someone is going to be autistic, or perhaps broader autistic phenotype, they’re going to be that way regardless of whether they have siblings or not. [...]«)