Essentials of Genetics 9th Edition by Michael Palladino William Klug, Michael Cummings, Charlotte Spencer

Exercise 3

As parents of an autistic child, a couple decided that entering a research study would not only educate them about their son's condition/ but also help further research into this complex, behaviourally defined disorder. In an interview , researchers explained to the parents that autism results from the action of hundreds of genes and that no single gene accounts for more than a small percentage of case. Recent studies have identified 18 genes that have a higher likelihood of involvement, referred to as candidate genes; three of these , on chromosomes 2, 7 , and 14 , are regarded as very strong candidate genes. Generally unaware of the principles of basic genetics , the couple asked a number of interesting questions. If you were the interviewer, how would you respond to them?
With such a complex genetic condition that may also depend on environmental factors , is there a way to calculate the risk that our next child will be autistic?