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Not long ago, the answer to this question would have
been “we have no idea.” Research is now delivering
the answers. First and foremost, we now know that
there is no one cause of autism, just as there is no
one type of autism. Over the last fve years, scien-
tists have identifed a number of rare gene changes
or mutations associated with autism. Research has
identifed more than 100 autism risk genes. In around
15% of cases, a specifc genetic cause of a person’s
autism can be identifed. However, most cases in-
volve a complex and variable combination of genetic
risk and environmental factors that infuence early
brain development.
In other words, in the presence of a genetic pre-
disposition to autism, a number of non-genetic or
environmental infuences further increase a child’s
risk. The clearest evidence of these environmental
risk factors involves events before and during birth.
They include advanced parental age at time of con-
ception (both mom and dad), maternal illness during
pregnancy, extreme prematurity, very low birth weight
and certain diffculties during birth, particularly those
involving periods of oxygen deprivation to the baby’s
brain. Mothers exposed to high levels of pesticides
and air pollution may also be at higher risk of having
a child with ASD. It is important to keep in mind that
these factors, by themselves, do not cause autism.
Rather, in combination with genetic risk factors, they
appear to modestly increase risk.
A small but growing body of research suggests that
autism risk is lower among children whose mothers
took prenatal vitamins (containing folic acid) in the
months before and after conception.
Increasingly, researchers are looking at the role of
the immune system in autism. Autism Speaks is
working to increase awareness and investigation of
these and other issues where further research has
the potential to improve the lives of those who
struggle with autism.
While the causes of autism are complex, it is abun-
dantly clear that it is not caused by bad parenting.
Dr. Leo Kanner, the psychiatrist who frst described
autism as a unique condition in 1943, believed that
it was caused by cold, unloving mothers. Bruno
Bettelheim, a renowned professor of child develop-
ment, perpetuated this misinterpretation of autism.
Their promotion of the idea that unloving mothers
caused their children’s autism created a generation of
parents who carried the tremendous burden of guilt
for their child’s disability. In the 1960s and 70s,
Dr. Bernard Rimland, the father of a son with autism
who later founded the Autism Society of America and
the Autism Research Institute, helped the medical
community understand that autism is a biological
disorder and is not caused by cold parents.
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