I know autism is a PDD, the whole autism spectrum classifies under PDD by it's very definition.
I don't think environmental factors need to be discounted even if autism is shown to be 100% in the genes. One theory holds that some children's genes leave them susceptible to developing autism if exposed to certain environmental factors, situations, etc. I don't think they have any evidence for this yet, but the field is so huge, I can't even be sure of that.
I'm willing to bet though, that if this research accurately narrows down the field of possibilities, then research is going to make faster strides as everyone concentrates in the right places.
Dr Szatmari told me last year that there were big breakthroughs coming in the next year, as researchers worldwide were pooling their data. Boy, he was right. I'd love for him and his colleagues to put my entire department out of work someday, and this discovery puts us another step closer to that.
no subject
I don't think environmental factors need to be discounted even if autism is shown to be 100% in the genes. One theory holds that some children's genes leave them susceptible to developing autism if exposed to certain environmental factors, situations, etc. I don't think they have any evidence for this yet, but the field is so huge, I can't even be sure of that.
I'm willing to bet though, that if this research accurately narrows down the field of possibilities, then research is going to make faster strides as everyone concentrates in the right places.
Dr Szatmari told me last year that there were big breakthroughs coming in the next year, as researchers worldwide were pooling their data. Boy, he was right. I'd love for him and his colleagues to put my entire department out of work someday, and this discovery puts us another step closer to that.