Does the apple fall far from the tree?

I recently read an article on nytimes.com which talked about families using a child's ASD diagnosis to make sense of family traits – idiosyncrasies the parents or grandparents had or have. (read the article online or as a pdf document).

I think every family does this to some extent, even families without any diagnoses. "He's independent, like his mother," or "She's very social, just like her dad." But it's probably done in more detail with families dealing with ASD, partly because we're looking so hard for answers, and partly because we've been trained to analyze behaviors.

Personally, I didn't know anything about varying degrees of sensitivity, until Sensory Integration was part of Calvin's OT diet. Now it's easier to explain why Cheryl likes deep-pressure massages, and doesn't seem to mind if her socks are bunched up, yet I can't stand massages at all, and get annoyed when my clothes twist or bunch.

It turns out that Cheryl & I are both "normal", but she falls near the Hypo end of the spectrum and I'm closer to the Hyper end. And now that we have 2 kids, it's obvious to see that both of them border on the edge of normal – Calvin used to be Hypo-sensitive but has made great progress, and Jonas can get upset over something seemingly very small, not quite hyper-sensitive, but close.

It's interesting to think about.