2 
Comments
Pediatrician, geneticist, and researcher Wendy Chung starts her talk with the question:
“Why?”
“Why?” is a question that parents ask me all the time.
“Why did my child develop autism?”
What caused autism? is a question that plagues many as they come to terms with a diagnosis in their child. While myths and fears predominate over the unknown truth behind the cause of the disorder, it is safe to say out loud that vaccines certainly do NOT cause Autism. If only the condition were that simple for the research community to pin down the cause to one single succinct source. A common quote you may hear from any Pediatrician, Pediatric Neurologist or Child Psychiatrist is – “If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism,”
This only goes to say that there isn’t a single cause for the condition. It is a disorder along a spectrum – a spectrum of symptoms, manifestations, and etiologies. Among this sea of uncertainties in the Autism community, there has been one reliable cause that is being very actively studied today – The genetics of Autism.
Abnormal gene(s) are the most probable cause of the condition that can be assessed, as a select few genetic factors may raise the stakes for Autism risk in the child. What are those genes you may ask?
Watch this very insightful video and learn more about how the field of genetics is trying to get a step closer to getting some of those unsolved questions answered to help us understand the condition better.
