Is autism hereditary or genetic?

There is clearly a genetic part to autism. It tends to run in families. And identical twins, who share the same genes, are much more likely to both have autism than are fraternal twins. So genes are involved. But it isn't easy to nail down what is going on genetically with autism. read more

Heritability of autism. The heritability of autism is the proportion of differences in expression of autism that can be explained by genetic variation; if the heritability of a condition is high, then the condition is considered to be primarily genetic. read more

Autism is a complex condition and genes that trigger its onset are even more so. Within the study of a genetic cause to identify hereditary sources it had been found that no specific gene that the scientific community is aware of actually causes autism. read more