Despite the influx of information regarding the causes of autism, and whether it is genetic or environmental (Nature versus nurture) autism is still widely debated. First I 'm going to discuss what nature versus nurture is, and its findings toward autism research. Following this I will also explain Twin Studies are, and their significance towards the research of autism. Last but not least I will give my opinion on the subject matter, and where I believe autism lies in this debate of nature versus nurture. The father of this idea of nature versus nurture is John Locke, which he writes about in his book "Some Thoughts Concerning Education". In this he presents his idea of a “blank slate”, for example, in the book he states “Our bodies will
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One of those being how autism was initially blamed on “bad parenting” and “refrigerator mothers” in the 1950’s, suggesting that the cause of autism had been based entirely on the parents style of raising their children. Another point the article raises is that in a 2010 study of the effects phthalates, a common chemical, which are endocrine disruptors that had shown correlations to social impairments of children between the ages of 7 and 9 (Klass 2011). However, these correlations don’t necessarily mean that Y equates to X and this is accentuated when Klass quote Dr. Hurtz-Picciotto (The women behind said study) with “No case probably has one cause”. The final piece of information is essential which it states how that answer to whether autism is either genetic or environmental isn’t quite clear, and suggests it is in fact a mixture of both. With this it is of utmost importance to take preventative measures (Such as avoiding pesticides, and chemicals of the like) to reduce the chances of …show more content…
As for the evidence shown for autisms genetic causes this is seen with the use of twin studies. “The implication is that something in their common gestational or early childhood experience may have contributed to this similarity.” (Klass 2011), which in other words means that there is something similar happening to both fraternal and identical twins during their mothers pregnancy that contributes to the children potentially having autism. In addition, with the twin studies results being similar it suggests that both the environment and genetics both play factors in autism. As stated earlier, scientists consider the environment to be something even as simple as an interaction with a microbe and the fetus. With this, the article speaks about how factors such as air pollution had shown links towards autism, however, “but without evidence of causality” (Klass 2011) which calls to my statement earlier of “Y does not equate to X”.
One of those being how autism was initially blamed on “bad parenting” and “refrigerator mothers” in the 1950’s, suggesting that the cause of autism had been based entirely on the parents style of raising their children. Another point the article raises is that in a 2010 study of the effects phthalates, a common chemical, which are endocrine disruptors that had shown correlations to social impairments of children between the ages of 7 and 9 (Klass 2011). However, these correlations don’t necessarily mean that Y equates to X and this is accentuated when Klass quote Dr. Hurtz-Picciotto (The women behind said study) with “No case probably has one cause”. The final piece of information is essential which it states how that answer to whether autism is either genetic or environmental isn’t quite clear, and suggests it is in fact a mixture of both. With this it is of utmost importance to take preventative measures (Such as avoiding pesticides, and chemicals of the like) to reduce the chances of …show more content…
As for the evidence shown for autisms genetic causes this is seen with the use of twin studies. “The implication is that something in their common gestational or early childhood experience may have contributed to this similarity.” (Klass 2011), which in other words means that there is something similar happening to both fraternal and identical twins during their mothers pregnancy that contributes to the children potentially having autism. In addition, with the twin studies results being similar it suggests that both the environment and genetics both play factors in autism. As stated earlier, scientists consider the environment to be something even as simple as an interaction with a microbe and the fetus. With this, the article speaks about how factors such as air pollution had shown links towards autism, however, “but without evidence of causality” (Klass 2011) which calls to my statement earlier of “Y does not equate to X”.