Aspie Dad

I had not heard of either Shadow Traits or Broader Autism Phenotype (BAP) before. Big Orange over at The Vision Splendid began the process of clueing me in. Paradiz’s Elijah’s Cup has been added to the ‘read’ pile. I reccomend his whole post…

I was reading Valerie Paradiz’s book “Elijah’s Cup: A Family’s Journey into the Community and Culture of High-Functioning Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome” when suddenly my heart nearly skipped a beat. I believe I found myself in her book when she introduced me to the topic of autistic “shadow traits”. She says “Geneticists call this BAP, or broader autism phenotype. Their studies show that BAP features occur at a higher incidence among parents and siblings of autistic children than they do in families with no autistic member.”

Hmmm… So, what then is a “shadow trait” and BAP?? In her book she quotes researchers Susan Folstein and Susan Santangelo:

“[i]n concept, BAP is similar to both autism and [Asperger's syndrome], but the traits and the behaviors are not usually severe and sometimes have adaptive value; it usually does not come to clinical attention. Individuals with BAP generally lack the markedly restricted interests or striking difficulties of getting along in the workplace that plague individuals with [Asperger’s Syndrome].”

I could not resist commenting:

[I]t sounds like any get together of either my wife’s or my families.

Our wedding was ‘interesting,’ with so many people who get overwhelmed and need to retreat and decompress. At any given time (except for the vows) someone essential was not to be found…

I ended up at The Vision Splendid and learned about these things because of Mom-NOS’s Do you speak Babaganoush?. Thanks, Mom-NOS.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 25th, 2006 at 11:11 pm and is filed under general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.