Disclaimer:  The author of this article is not a medical professional, and none of what follows is intended to be authoritative information.  The intent of this article is to provide a general approximation of modern medical knowledge on the subject of the causes of autism, simplified for ease of understanding.  Since much of modern medical knowledge on this subject is theory and speculation, nothing that follows can be considered absolute; since much of the following is simplified, this is doubly true.

The following is a potentially dangerous subject, one where the majority of my readers may have already formed their opinions before coming here.  It’s a subject that naturally generates strong opinions, and this is entirely understandable:  Childhood autism diagnoses (and misdiagnoses) have risen drastically in the industrialized world over the past few decades, and yet as a general rule it’s difficult in any one case to point to any definitive cause. (more…)