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Childhood Stress Leaves Genetic Scars
sciencehabit writes "Traumatic experiences in early life can leave emotional scars. But a new study suggests that violence in childhood may leave a genetic mark as well. Researchers have found that children who are physically abused and bullied tend to have shorter telomeres — structures at the tips of chromosomes whose shrinkage has been linked to aging and disease."
As if any more evidence was needed this just adds to the reasons that child abuse should be taken more seriously.
So much for Stick and Stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
Could the telomeres of chromosomes be lengthened? Would this theropy have the affect of causing the cell to handle longevity better?
Could it be that less genetically gifted children are more prone to be bullied?
I'm not trying to excuse this behavior, but did they account for the possibility that parents who give shorter telomwhatevers are more likely to abuse their children?
A study (http://www.pnas.org/content/109/17/6490.full) was published in PNAS today showing how low-ranking monkeys have worse immune systems than high-ranking monkeys. (In monkey societies, 'high-ranking' is a euphemism for bully.) We've known for a long time that subordinate monkeys have worse health and live shorter lives in general than dominant monkeys, but this is one of the first studies that describe how this actually happens, genetically and physiologically.
One more thing for me to stress about. I'm going to die before everyone else too. That explains why I have grey hairs at 23.
I know stories where a pretty, popular girl gets insulted by her pretty, popular friend - and takes her life, and everyone gets up in arms about "stopping bullying".
Only, that's not bullying. The way I see it, the extreme reaction (suicide), is due to this ridiculous importance the media puts on being popular in high school - "the most important time in your life".
The real victims of bullies are kids with physical or developmental problems. Maybe slightly autistic, maybe downs syndrome. The ones who don't fit in, and aren't cool. I haven't seen one sad major media article about these kids, and I have to believe they're still being called "retard", are assualted, and have rocks and such thrown at them every single day. And if they speak up, they'll just be told they need to deal with that - boys being boys and all the rest.
If they fight back, of course, they'll be suspended, arrested, or whatever it takes. After all, it's just not right to hurt the feelings of one of the pretty, popular children.
On topic - are you sure that bullying is causing genetic problems, or are they bullied precisely BECAUSE of those problems? Cause and effect, and all that shit.
And I wish I could stop hearing about bullying. It's being used to describe the wrong thing, the whining and complaining is coming from a sense of entitlement, not any real desire to treat the weird, awkward or different children as equal to the rest.
It's already known that stress can seem to accelerate aging. Ever see those pictures of presidents before a term, then after? 4 years passed for everybody else, but it looks like they aged 10 years.
Psyche and soma are not fully distinguishable.
Parents need to learn there are other ways to handle discipline and yes, aside from being damaging in yet another known way - previous revelations including lower test scores and greater aggression from children who have been spanked, spanking is the lazy way out. There are more effective, responsible means.
Timeouts for one, if done right and that is key, if done right, are absolutely better. Parents screw this one up by making them too long or delaying them. I for one always found a minute per year of age, given immediately at the time of the infraction regardless of where we were, done standing, done silent and done facing a wall, corner, tree, whatever was handy and followed with an explanation for the punishment and a directive for future behavior was very effective. So effective in fact I would find no need for their use within a couple weeks time. I had compliance.
Now I'll admit these weren't my children - rather I was a nanny for a great many years, and parents tend to have to be around their children a bit more than I had to, so perhaps adjustments would be necessary to maintain effectiveness. Or other avenues explored. My point is simply that there are other ways and they can be much more effective, if done right.
This just smells like bad science. Not that it's impossible, but a claim like this is pretty extreme and I'd like to see it replicated several times before believing it.
Forget the organizational level for a second, and consider on a human level. Officials working for schools and depend on them to put food on the table would have to understand that authoritarian regimes tend to target and eliminate education.
FTFA: ...But the connection between telomere length and health and longevity is far from clear. "There's a lot of doubt in the field," notes Joao Passos, a cellular aging specialist at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom who was not involved in the research. "For as many studies that show telomere length as a good predictor of health outcomes, there are as many that find no relationship."...
Also, with a bit of work I bet they could find something else the test subjects had in common and thus be claimed to also be a cause for the shortening of Telomeres.
To link this to child abuse is a bit of a stretch based on what I can read in the articles. It would appear that stress has more to do with appearing to age faster than anything. Being abused is stressful. I know first hand.
We've already seen that childhood socioeconomic status can have an effect on adulthood DNA methylation which in turn changes gene expression and susceptibility to disease. You may read about it here: http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/10/18/ije.dyr147.short?rss=1
Doesn't it naturally follow then that how a child is treated is just as much a part of that environment of stress as whether or not they got food, healthcare and shelter regularly?
I see these as irrevocably linked.
Which leads me to wonder if the next natural step is a study comparing telomere length with regard to childhood and adulthood socioeconomic status or a study comparing childhood and adulthood methylation of a cohort in the same socioeconomic class, but differing exposure to violence?
That said, I wonder if you could elaborate on what you mean with this smelling like bad science?
Instead you cited a quote by another in an article about the study. Now that may be fine for a minor point, but to say the entire study fails to prove anything based on one man's generalization, a man who didn't specifically say the same, is, respectfully, downright silly.
Especially when you follow it was contradictory anecdotal evidence from your own experience.
Remember when they used to teach that humans exhale co2, inhale oxygen? And plants "inhale" CO2, and release oxygen? Turns out they take in oxygen, too.
It used to be taught that environmental factors during an organism's lifetime (malnutrition, etc.) did not have an effect on the genetic heritage of offspring (you get a "clean slate" of DNA, so to speak). The opposing idea, that, e.g., giraffes are tall because their ancestors had to reach up to the tall leaves, and then they had long-necked kid giraffes was derided as Lamarckism.
But here we are with a study that says environmental factors can leave a genetic mark.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
You say timeouts are crap, but:
(1) You failed to address that I used them as an example of an alternative and in failing to do so, you revealed that you most likely view the subject as if the situation were dichotomous with spanking or timeouts as the only options out there. They aren't.
(2) Your description on how your parents went about it more closely resembles how I described doing a timeout incorrectly and certainly not how I described doing one correctly.
You really want to tell me that if your father had instituted the timeout immediately after the infraction - without delay, had been standing behind you, keeping your head facing the wall, keeping you silent, and gave not before or during but after an explanation for the punishment, and then a directive for future behavior, that it wouldn't have made an impression on you?
I had compliance for years after only days, or at most a couple weeks, of these decisive timeouts. One prerequisite to doing a timeout right is giving it your attention.
Spanking is the lazy man's way out and only a fool thinks otherwise.
Forget the organizational level for a second, and consider on a human level. Officials working for schools and depend on them to put food on the table would have to understand that authoritarian regimes tend to target and eliminate education.
Target and eliminate? No. They aren't that stupid (would that they were). What they do is pervert education and use it for the purpose of social engineering and indoctrination. Any transmission of knowledge or understanding is incidental and only to the extent necessary that the peons/students can perform useful labor, to form the bottom of the pyramid. They would also encourage conformity and permit various bullying and other abuses to ensure that the immaturities of childhood extend well into adulthood. What they absolutely would not do is teach serious, tough-minded critical thinking skills and raise up people who can educate themselves and do not need to depend on an instructor to tell them what is important to learn.
Sounds just like what we have now in the USA. These things happen slowly from the perspective of a human life, but quickly from the perspective of written history. Just consider how much the USA has changed in the last three generations. Then you can get a feel for what's going on, where it is headed, what the ultimate expression of it would be, and why it would be done that way.
The USA's tyranny is not going to be hard tyranny, the kind that waves a gun in your face and demands that you submit. It is going to be a soft tyranny, the kind that knows what's best for you, that you have learned to depend on. That, however, is just a matter of style, the means. The result is the same.
I have to ask, were you trolling or did you truly not understand that? What real tyrants understand is that the average person is so caught up in their day-to-day affairs that they tend not to be long-term thinkers. They are not skilled at seeing the path something is taking and projecting what the end of that path will be and that skill is not taught to them and they are not self-educators who would acquire it on their own. So if you want to implement tyranny, you do it in baby steps, each one carefully justified and defended by its ardent little apologists. After all, you don't want the terrorists to win, do you? After all, you want to protect the children, don't you? After all, you want the poor to be taken care of, don't you?
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Once again, maybe genetically inferior children have genetically inferior parents who are more likely to be abusive? Just a thought. Can't imagine alcohol and cigarettes during pregnancy helps much either, but it happens...
Your attack on my person is unnecessary and unwarranted. I was not trolling and you have no basis for questioning my understanding of what you said for I didn't question that there was value to what you said. You seem to be one of those people who automatically assumes that any response is made in disagreement.
Rather all I did was insert a factor worthy of consideration. Historically, authoritarian regimes - the hard sort, have targeted education for elimination - perhaps not for the entire population, but large portions. The most glaring example would be Mao's China - but that really wasn't my reference. My implication is that it is happening here in the United States, schools are being targeted. Funding is being cut on all levels, class sizes are going up, teachers and the very concept of education are being regularly attacked by politicians, religious types, etc. Some in fact use the very social engineering argument you are using to justify these assaults.
I would argue that it is those attacks, and not some plot by school officials with high end psychology degrees or evil scheme by the likes of the Obama administration, that do the greatest harm to furthering the development critical thinking skills, the general diffusion of knowledge, etc. Now we come to where I disagree with you. I don't believe that the end result is some soft nanny state. I believe we are heading towards the waiving a gun in front of you type. We have ever more militant police departments, the return of debtor prisons and social programs - which would be a hallmark of this perceived nanny state, continue to be cut far beyond the bone. This country is heading down a very scary road.
Let's not go to each other's throats when we both agree that education is one of the best places to start to fix things.
I have a brain and put to its full use, I can't for the life of me figure out how the liberal bogeyman came into this for you, but I'm sorry to tell you that your reasoning is inherently flawed. First off, I have found that people of all political stripes are more than willing to take a study, apply it universally and try to force it on everyone.
I did not, in any way, suggest that timeouts would work for everyone. What I did find was that for the thirty or so children I cared for as the eldest of three, the neighborhood babysitter for twelve years and a full-time nanny for six years timeouts done in the fashion I described were effective for all of them. I got years of compliance after only a few of these. I would add that some jurisdictions around the country have found a similar effect in jail sentences, faster and shorter sentencing apparently reduces recidivism.
I emphasize again that there are alternatives. Some parents have found groundings of all sorts to be effective or ineffective depending on the child, the type involved and the method used to carry it out. Some parents have forced chores as punishments. Some parents force extra schoolwork using workbooks bought from the likes on Amazon - I discourage it because I don't believe education should be thought of as a negative / believe it could lead to some long-term harm, but for some it's arguably effective. Sometimes you just need to apply a little more time. I had one boy who needed two weeks straight before he got it.
What I can say is that there are universal truths. Spanking, whether it is effective or not for getting a child to stop a particular act, is bad for all children. It leads to aggression, lower test scores, etc. Whatever the manifestation for a particular child the point is, if I shoot you in the foot you're going to stop kicking me with that foot, but let's look beyond just getting you to stop kicking me. Put another way, when there is permanent harm, it doesn't matter if it is effective. It could be the most effective method out there and that would change that it is wrong, especially in light of alternatives.
This study may eventually prove to be yet another piece backing that.
It used to be taught that environmental factors during an organism's lifetime (malnutrition, etc.) did not have an effect on the genetic heritage of offspring (you get a "clean slate" of DNA, so to speak). [...] But here we are with a study that says environmental factors can leave a genetic mark.
The study was about somatic cells, eg "body cells" that make up the specialized tissues of your body. Your offspring are formed from germ cells, found in your gonads, and consequently your offspring can only inherit DNA from your germ cells, but never your somatic cells (except in the case of cloning or other artificial techniques).
Telomeres are the "endcaps" of chromosomal DNA. Every time a chromosome is copied, a small portion at the ends of the chromosome get "left off" of the copy, which limits the number of time a cell can divide before the telomeres are consumed and functional DNA segments begin to be deleted. This (usually) prevents cells from reproducing in an uncontrolled fashion, and it's one of your body's main defenses against cancer. That's how it works in somatic cells.
Germ cells, on the other hand, can express a ribozyme called "telomerase," which can bind to the ends of a chromosome and extend the telomeres. This is why animals can reproduce indefinitely even though 99% of their cells are "mortal." (As others have pointed out, when a somatic cell begins to express telomerase it's usually cancer.)
The upshot of all of this is that shortened telomeres in your somatic cells will have no direct effect on your offspring. This particular study in no way supports the idea that environmental factors are responsible for genetic changes in offspring. Your post is therefore ill-informed even if your thesis is correct ("almost everything they teach in American public school is either wrong or simplified to the point of uselessness?").
To rectify your error, your homework assignment for tonight is to study the enzymes called "telomerase" and "reverse transcriptase," followed by learning the "central dogma of biology."
Dismissed.
Bah, humbug. Humbug I say! The English language is a harsh mistress.
what doesn't kill 'em makes 'em weaker.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
I think they have the cause and effect backwards. It is not that abuse causes short telomeres, rather, the short telomeres cause abuse. No, really. Most child abuse is from family members ... who also have the short telomeres in most of these cases. Short telomeres also make people bad and turn them into abusers, bank robbers, and even spammers. And I think Anonymous Coward has short telomeres, too.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
What about this part? It wasn't a detail. Our espoused aim as a country is to educate our entire populace, do you disagree? Would you disagree that that is not the aim of North Korea nor was it the aim of Nazi Germany? Shit, the latter decided to simply exterminate a portion of their population. There are leaders in this country who don't believe that should be our aim. Do you disagree?
You emphasized that education is useful for imposing one school of thought by an authoritarian regime and you pointed out that religious types dislike education because it prevents them from imposing their one school of thought, but you want me to believe that religious types aren't authoritarian. I wonder what former members of the Mormon church, who no longer hear from their families, would say. It's not just corporate interests, there is a religious war in this country. Not a hot one, but certainly a very real one. Take for example the teaching of evolution or sex education. Your indoctrination is alive and well because the religious types have had their puppets infiltrating school boards for decades. Corporations don't give a shit about these issues, although global warming is another matter.
As is anything that has an effect on the bottom line which is of course why you're right about corruption and corporate influence. As for your statement that there's no single leader who is going to seize power, how can you be sure? Would we have foreseen any who have? Even if you're right, when the house of cards collapses, are you really telling me that guns won't be involved?
I'm not sure any of the three of us are on the same page, but the things we're coming up with are interesting.
that can be used on any one just to get out covering any thing they don't want to pay for.
Childhood leaves scars!
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
Stress is general is bad for one's health. The three S's are a good foundation to build your health: Sleep, Sun, Stress. P.S. Sex would fall under Stress (i.e. inversely proportional)
You're out-voted. Since this is cultural rather than a measurable scientific fact, the vote determines truth and thus you're obviously wrong.
In any case, you really are wrong. There is no lower age limit. The only thing that matters is the question of the child's ability to associate the crime with the punishment. This largely has to do with attention span, so babies need to be spanked without the slightest delay. You can wait a day with a 10-year-old, but you might get only milliseconds with a young baby. It also helps to spank the body part involved, typically a hand that was grabbing something dangerous.
I know we did not consider this news either
And there were dinosaurs roaming the earth and I had to walk to school barefoot, through the snow, uphill both ways.
Your generation was lucky, Gramps....
You should have stuck around to the Extinction Event(tm).
There were no dinosaurs, but dodging asteroids while walking to school barefoot, through snow and across blast fronts and stumbling through scorched impact craters, while going uphill both ways was a real treat!
Nevermind the wooly mammoth stampedes, and sabre tooth tigers trying to steal your lunch, packs of Dire Wolves yapping at you on every corner....
But, I digress....*takes double shot of Geritol* AHHH! ;-) ;-) ;-)
Oh, and to parent poster, 'Compaqt':
Get off my lawn! Just mind the craters, whippersnapper.
On a serious note, I think the subject could be studied further to our eventual benefit as a species.
Where I'm headed with this:
I know of stressful times from my family and older acquaintances remembering their lives, backed by history records/texts, there seems to be a significant difference in longevity between those that survived intense, acute stressors, and those that survived medium, chronic stressors[1].
The acute stressor bunch seems to live long lives, while the chronic stressor bunch seems to die sooner.
It could be I am just not knowledgeable enough in this field to know that this has been done?
[1] addressed somewhat earlier here by 'girlintraining (1395911)'.
Hmmm..... /. Quote of the Day:
*
"He missed an invaluable opportunity to hold his tongue. -- Andrew Lang"*
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
They just dye their hair gray so that they look more noble and smart. But they probably do get a few more wrinkles from grinning all the time...
I have to challange this claim, at least in part.
It's when they added the "or bullied" part that sent up a flag. Fact is, every single person has either been bullied or been a bully at some point in their lives. It is a natural part of life, and it teaches us to stand up for ourselves. Without that, I have no doubt a lot more people would be more vulnerable to bigger threats, or would take their own lives because they do not have the life experiance to cope with the events around them.
Everybody needs to get past the whole "bulling is bad" mentality.
if your father had instituted the timeout immediately after the infraction - without delay, had been standing behind you, keeping your head facing the wall, keeping you silent, and gave not before or during but after an explanation for the punishment, and then a directive for future behavior
I think one of the key points is "standing behind you". Most parents I have seen using "time outs" IGNORE the child for the duration, often even leaving the room, rather than standing with them. It's a dismissive gesture, and in my experience totally invalidates the punishment. Parents often use time-outs to calm themselves down, and while this is admirable, it is a sign the parent lacks the self-control to be in charge of another human life.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
They do infact get older from experiencing the many incidence of physical abuse ? Sorry for the car analogy, but if you drive a city car offroad, you'll have to fix it more often, and it will eventually go junk much faster. You exchange bits and parts in a car by buying new parts, and the body exchanges dead cells for new ones by dividing cells, and the telomeres shorten. No new concept of "genetic scars" required.
"children who are physically abused and bullied tend to have shorter telomeres"
Science used by weak geeks to further an agenda.
BULLIES UNITE! Lets beat these grown up geeks that provide science to try and gain strength.
Does bullying cause shortened telomeres, or do stupid little b*tches with short telomeres just need to accept their rightful place in the social order?
Mama Bear: To those parents that are completely anti-spanking... hey, good luck with that. Technically, a timeout is a short period of solitary confinement, which itself deemed torture, cruel, and unusual... So before you go overboard and compare a measured spanking to beating a child... just remember, you still torture them with solitary confinement, so what makes you parent of the year, eh? ;) I'm sure a few of these velvet glovers will turn out wonderful kids. I'm also sure they will put their child so high on a pedestal to scar their unique little snowflakes in worse ways.
Papa Bear: On the other hand, if a parent ever has to hit, leave a mark, turn something red, or use something other than the palm of their own hand, they're going to far. To that kind of parent: You are bigger, stronger, and in control. For you to use a hanger, belt, stick, wooden spoon, knuckes or other hard part of the body, or anything else on a child is abuse! You're beating your child to quench your anger, not teach a lesson.
Baby Bear: Appropriate measure and balance. My son will be 4 this summer. I'm adamant about teaching him not to grab from the counter, but let's say he goes to grab a knife. I will slap the back of his hand or his bottom (after taking the knife from him calmly, of course). This isn't time to "negotiate". My son permanently injuring himself will receive a swift sting somewhere. He's a small child. He's smart, but appealing to his intellect is completely wrong when it comes to immediate danger. He doesn't run into traffic in a parking lot. He doesn't grab at the stove. He doesn't put coins in his mouth. The key is being consistent, and rare. I think the more you spank, and the harder you spank, work against you. I don't want my child resenting me, or thinking I'm out to hurt him. If he does, then I've failed. But if he gets hit by a car, I've definitely failed!
Very rarely do I ever have to spank for another reason, and that's usually if he refuses to stand in timeout. It's measured, not harsh (I am rougher when he and I are rough housing and playing... so its more embarrassing than anything), and I give him lots of warnings. If I say what the consequence will be, I always follow up. Parents that threaten punishment, and don't follow through do their kids a huge injustice just as if they continually promised ice cream for dessert, and never deliver on that either. Parents that punish without explanation are causing more problems than if they did nothing.
Any form of punishment is followed by having him explain what he did that caused the punishment ("I got a time out because I didn't listen when you told me to put up my toys."), followed by me adding explanations for why what he did was wrong, followed by a big hug, wiping of any tears, a kiss on the cheek, and telling him to go up to anyone he was bad to and apologize.
My son, is healthy, happy, knows he's loved, and is a very sweet and polite boy. He's not mean to animals or other kids. Most of the time, I've found talking quietly and firmly to my son ends all that tantrum business while shopping.
I8-D
Correlation does not equal causation.
Maybe they have it backwards, maybe short telomeres cause your genetically similar relatives to abuse you or causes you to act in such a way as to encourage or make possible bullying on yourself.
Or any number of other less direct relationships.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Would you argue that spanking does not create stress on a child? Let me remind you we are on a thread dealing with the potential long-term effects of childhood stress. In addition to this study on the length of telomeres, I would note that I read a study a couple months back on childhood socioeconomic status and its relation to adult DNA methylation. The study looked at shelter, food, occupation of the father, etc. Would it be a terrible stretch to conclude that all of these are stress factors and that if both studies are correct, then childhood stress would have an effect on both telomere length and adult DNA methylation? I don't believe it would be. Spanking, as a cause of stress, would therefore not just have an effect on telomere length but also methylation, with long-term consequences increasing the likelihood of premature aging, cancer, etc.
How would you know now, at whatever age you may be, whether or not the effects of those childhood spankings aren't ahead of you? What arrogance is this to proclaim so publicly that you are so very aware of your genetic future? Look, I'm happy you did so well on your tests and perhaps you really weren't trying to be aggressive, just passionate perhaps. Still, do you really believe that you would be so aware as to know whether or not you are aggressive compared to your peers? Or for that matter whether you house any emotional trait that could be detrimental to others that may be linked to your childhood experiences? Have you had your telomeres measured against your peers? Checked your methylation?
Let's say you're right, and such a person could exist. Even if you were the rare example that somehow managed no effect on your telomere length, methylation, test scores, level of aggression, etc. with no post traumatic psychiatric conditions, doesn't it sway you in the slightest that the vast majority, well over ninety-some percent, would have lifelong negative effects of some type inflicted and that in light of alternatives, perhaps another method would be better? You really want to claim so explicitly that I am baseless in this?
Please, rethink your words my friend.
With respect, you're no sample - you're a guy and his sister. There is a wealth of data out there that effectively concludes that virtually all children will have some long-term negative effect of some type. Do you deny it? These were but two examples in a thread discussing what may prove to be another related to premature aging among other effects. You may have escaped the aggression and lower test scores, and kudos to you on that, but how can you be sure that there isn't some other effect you're not yet aware of?
As a pacifist, shouldn't you agree that there are better ways to solve problems than with violence? Isn't that the definition or why would you think it would be any different with a child?
Personally, I think you managed so well because your parents gave you other attention besides spanking. That what spanking you got was most likely because of a tip they were given and they probably didn't use it terribly often. Of course I'm baseless in these assumptions, but would you tell me I'm wrong?
It's remarkable that in opposition to my comments, people cling to only the two given examples in a thread that was started over yet another possible long-term effect of childhood stress. I doubt you would tell me that spanking doesn't cause some level of stress. You want to know what is dangerous? This tired response that you managed to escape both of these examples of harm is supposed to somehow validate the method. Look, kudos to you on surviving it so well, but you know what? Most aren't that resilient.
You want to know something, I was spanked. I don't believe I'm particularly aggressive and I've always tended to do well in my classes. I'm arguing this from a genetics research lab on my campus, but who am I to say that some consequence isn't before me or that something I do that I'm not aware of is a manifestation of those spankings? Like you, my siblings weren't spanked and they turned out just like me.
Look, I've done my reading. Most children see some consequence, be it in aggression, tests, possibly methylation and now possibly telomere length, among others. When most have some effect, and you can never tell prior to the fact which child will manifest a long-term consequence, why would the method have any validity to you? I mean I could see the point of proponents of spanking if such effects were as rare as any vaccination, but they're quite the opposite. Why wouldn't you immediately disagree with it in light of alternatives? What is this "need to be spanked" you speak of? If you mean power, don't you see that there are other ways to apply power? I have.
Although I guess that is a terrible example because someone is bound to come along and think thermisol is responsible for Autism.
Pro-tip: It isn't.