At a recent conference on autism, one researcher described investigations of families of autistic children that indicate autistic tendencies in siblings and parents of children with autism. The data seemed to show that quite a few fathers of autistic children may even have been cases of Asperger's syndrome (social isolation without developmental language disorder).

One father in the audience immediately spoke up and asked how this data had been gathered; the response was through structured psychiatric interviews with the mothers - mothers more often make themselves accessible to researchers than busy work-strapped fathers.

Needless to say a heated discussion followed culminating in the statement of one mother that she might rather offer up her pedantic domineering mother-in-law as an Asperger's case than her emotionally numbed husband. Statements like these are only the tip of the iceberg in indicating the dissension that occurs in families of children with autism.