Here are my thoughts, I have two children on the spectrum, my son who is 7 and my daughter who is 6, My son is high funtioning, and my daughter is low functioning. I also have an older brother who was never really diagnosed, because they did not do it much then, but has asbergers. So I do believe it runs in the family, and I have also heard of this happening before.

That being said we spent thousands of dollars on genetic testing where they did not find anything, but if I had to bet money I would say that our family has a genetic disposition just waiting for a trigger. Whewn it comes to the shots, I do not believe it is in the medications themselves, if anything it might be that giving a child that much at one time might be a factor, or it may even be being caused by drugs the parents, more specifically the mother is taking during pregnancy. I think if you add to that the genetic disposition then you get the autism. You just have to look at the facts, and then put things together logically.

We were thinking of having a third child because my daughter is going to need help after we are gone, but the risk is to high, and getting a third ASD child would be extremely difficult to say the least, so we really do not want to take the chance even knowing what we know, the odds are against us.

When it comes to the genetic testing, I would not do it unless it is being paid for by insurance, because honestly it is not going to change anything, your kids are going to be what they are anyway, and even knowing if there is a genetic link does not help with that. I understand that if you are thinking about having more children you might want to know, but there is no proof in any of the tests they currently do.

While I do not know the answer to either question, I can say that I am unaware of anyone on either side of the family with autism. However, I displayed several similar behaviors as a child but grew out of them (ie hand flapping). Since there's always the possibility that people go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, I may not be able to say for certain that there is no one else in the family with autism.

I'm going to do my very best not to start a controversy here! :) I think that there could be a genetic pre-disposition to Autism and that the rigorous immunization schedule children receive could trigger it's onset. Do we really know what is in the shots our children receive? My brother is Autistic and now I have an Autistic son. But, my husband had a brother with a congenital heart defect and we havent' seen that in any of our 5 children. There is no way to determine your risk as a statistic because all of these things are questions that have not been definitively answered. I have 4 nuerotypical children and if I hadn't given birth to my 2nd child we would not have had any with Autism. So, several generations could be skipped over even if there is a genetic factor. Now, I hope you haven't stirred up a controversy. Some people are 100% it's immunizations, others are 100% sure it's not. Some people are going to say it's been proven that it's genetic and some will say it's not. The bottom line is we don't have all of the answers to the causation of Autism regardless of all of the studies that are out there. Now, you are going to get probably 100 posts on this topic, but I will not answer any further so I don't get myself into trouble! I think the most important thing is that as a parent you know what to do about it - not that you can determine a clear cause and determine risk for your whole family. Just my 2 cents - or more like a half dollar. :)

There is no known 'cause' of autism spectrum disorders. Currently there are a cluster of behaviors, any of which by themselves would indicate an individual's quirkiness. But together, they constitute a syndrome with a tag, or a name.
There are many studies being conducted in labs around the world, where researchers are trying to look at the genetics of autism. So far there is only a loose correlation of some genes and some of those quirky behaviors. That's NOT to say that there isn't a genetic component. It's simply too complex to analyze with the tools at hand..
The safest thing to say is that autism is a multifactorial problem with both genetic and environmental components; that is, both nature and nurture play a part.

http://autism.about.com/od/causesofautism/p/rec...