April is Autism Awareness Month

Originally Posted by md4958

Ray, is it known if this increase is because more symptoms are now being diagnosed as autism, where as they werent sure before?

Also, are there any theories for what causes autism? Are there environmental factors involved?

I do think that the increase is due to the symptoms being picked up better by Doctors where it wasn’t in the past. We actually noticed the symptoms because of a billboard, and started researching it, and took him to his pediatrician.

There are a lot of theories on this, but I believe that it is hereditary not environmental. There is also a theory that it is more common in premature infants. I do think that prematurely has something to do with it as my 6 year old was born at 30 weeks. On the same note my 18 month old is starting to show some symptoms of autism, and was only bore a couple of weeks early.