Heritability of Autistic Traits in the General Population

Heritability of autistic traits in the general population.

OBJECTIVE To explore genetic and environmental influences on individual differences in autistic traits in early adulthood and to test if there is assortative mating (nonrandom partner choice) for autistic traits in the general population. DESIGN Twin family study using structural equation modeling. SETTING Population-based twin family sample from the Netherlands. PARTICIPANTS Twins aged 1...

Intergenerational transmission of subthreshold autistic traits in the general population.

BACKGROUND Autistic disorder (AD) is a disabling oligogenic condition characterized by severe social impairment. Subthreshold autistic social impairments are known to aggregate in the family members of autistic probands; therefore, we conducted this study to examine the intergenerational transmission of such traits in the general population. METHODS The Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), a qu...

Are Autistic Traits in the General Population Stable across Development?

There is accumulating evidence that autistic traits (AT) are on a continuum in the general population, with clinical autism representing the extreme end of a quantitative distribution. While the nature and severity of symptoms in clinical autism are known to persist over time, no study has examined the long-term stability of AT among typically developing toddlers. The current investigation meas...

Autistic traits in the general population: a twin study.

BACKGROUND Recent research has indicated that autism is not a discrete disorder and that family members of autistic probands have an increased likelihood of exhibiting autistic symptoms with a wide range of severity, often below the threshold for a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder. OBJECTIVE To examine the distribution and genetic structure of autistic traits in the general population...

Empathizing and systemizing are differentially related to dimensions of autistic traits in the general population