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Comment by SV_BubbleTime | Hacker News Reader

> Hammond is now the mother of two autistic sons.

An autistic autistic-advocate has two sons and they are both autistic? What are the odds of that? Is there some genetic hand down I’ve never heard of?

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Heritability of ASD is pretty widely accepted and mainstream for years (family history listed as number 1 risk factor on Wikipedia).

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26709141/

Science is long past if it is heritable though and onto why.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2215632120

Yes, it is highly heritable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_autism

If your first child is autistic then the chances of your second child being autistic skyrocket to well over 50%. The problem is that a lot of autistic symptoms don't show up until you've already had your second kid.

Can you elaborate on your comment? A lot of autistic advocates have autistic children.

So you're saying autistic people should not have children?

I think he's just probing the improbability of this scenario absent a genetic component (which wouldn't be surprising to me if there was - is it asserted that autism is non-genetic?)

I mean, I'm autistic and will adopt instead of having biological children for that very reason. I'm high functioning and still had a cursed childhood owing to it. I wouldn't roll the dice on bestowing that on anybody, let alone my kin. I realize that's a pretty hot take to many people but as someone that dealt with the best-case scenario of the disorder, this isn't something any kid should have to deal with.

I'm willing to take the risk if the opportunity shows itself. But I've spent so much time understanding what the disorder did to me that I think I could teach my child the things that took me so long to learn.

That's a fair point, and a good way of looking at it. My biggest concern, to be honest, is that they'll be low-functioning and it'll be because of the hand I chose to deal them. The thought alone is haunting

I find this inspiring - truly an example of heroism and bravery. Bravo.

The specific questions asked were "what are the odds of that?" and "is there a genetic component?"

The answer to the latter is "yes", which although unquantified in the responses, at least intuitively changes baserate assumptions.

I'm not sure how one draws a normative assertion out of the questions, implied or otherwise.

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