Why America’s Most Inbred Family Barks and Growls? Experts say stage 3 autism may be the cause

A documentary revealing the nation’s most inbred family rocked America this week, highlighting the taboo practice that still quietly continues in remote parts of the country.

The Whittaker family of Odd, West Virginia is so cultured that many members are clearly mentally retarded and cannot speak properly. Danny Ray Whittaker, whose name is Ray, can only communicate by growling and barking.

While information about the reclusive family is limited, he is speculated to have stage three non-verbal autism.

Ray (pictured) is part of the infamous inbred Whittaker family. Although he cannot speak, he shows signs of being able to understand and respond to language during the interview

The siblings filmed for the documentary were born to cousins ​​whose fathers were twins.

One of the twins was also married to his own cousin, which added to the risk. Several generations of inbreeding now make the family four times more likely to have rare genetic disorders.

In a 2015 paper, Dr. Alex Prayson of the National Council on Rehabilitation Education that marriage between close relatives increases a person’s risk of inheriting DNA that causes autism or other problems.

“Both autism and inbreeding disorders may share similar abnormalities in brain structure and/or function,” said Dr. Prayson in his article submitted to the Social Science Research Network.

“Brain scans of these two children show abnormalities in the shape and structure of the brain compared to the neurotypical or normal brain found in children.”

Despite being non-verbal, Ray is still attentive and responsive to questions, having been interviewed by Soft White Underbelly for the past few years.

He answered the interviewer’s questions with grunts, barks, nods and points.

While his answers are uncertain, some make it clear that he understands what he is being asked and provides the correct answer despite his inability to speak.

For example, when asked what he is eating, Ray shows the interviewer his sandwich. When asked about his late brother Freddy, he grunts and points to his grave near the house.

It is unclear whether Ray ever received a formal diagnosis for the condition.

While many autistic children are non-verbal, the majority eventually develop language. In rare cases, a person remains non-verbal until adulthood. These cases represent only a handful of autism cases in the US.

With a characteristic called voices, some people with conditions such as autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder make sudden movements or loud noises to stimulate their senses.

America’s Most Inbred Family Tree: How the Growling Whittakers of West Virginia Began

America’s most inbred family started with identical twin brothers whose children married each other — resulting in heartbreaking genetic defects that grunted a little instead of talking.

This can include barking, growling, head banging, nail biting and other unusual actions.

Experts say that a person’s actions help them express and manage their emotions when they are overstimulated or unable to.

Scientists have not determined the exact cause of autism, believing it to be a mix of genetic and environmental factors.

A landmark study in 2020 made the strongest connection between the condition and genetics.

Scientists led by researchers from Yale University collected genetic data from 35,000 people and identified 102 genes that increase a person’s risk for autism.

Previously, only 65 genes were linked to the condition. Among the newly discovered genes were 30 that had never before been linked to a developmental disorder.

“Many play a role in the neural connections of the brain. The rest is mainly involved in turning other genes on and off in brain development,” said Dr. Francis Collins, former director of the National Institutes of Health, about the findings.

He continued: “With these gene discoveries in hand, researchers are now turning their attention to unraveling additional details about how these genes work in the brain.”

A person is born with between 20,000 and 25,000 genes. At conception they receive half from their mother and half from their father.

These genes are found in a person’s chromosomes, proteins found in the nucleus of the body’s cells.

The majority of people are born with 23 pairs of chromosomes, with each duo receiving one from each parent.

Dr. Prayson explained that inbreeding increases a person’s risk of getting genes that lead to conditions like autism.

He continued: “Inbreeding is considered a problem in humans because it increases the likelihood of inheriting a damaged chromosome from a common ancestor.

“The act of incest does not cause birth defects. Crossbreeding increases the likelihood that a child will be born with a double dose of one or more recessive genetic problems that can cause birth defects.’

About two percent of Americans are on the autism spectrum, and an estimated one-third of this group has severe autism.

The Whittakers are America’s most inbred family, as filmmaker Mark Laita reveals in his 12-minute short, Inbred Family – The Whittakers. Pictured: The Whittaker

Laita’s video revealed that the family did not know their genetic issues stemmed from inbreeding. They also could not remember much about their parents or other relatives

Essentially, this means that an estimated seven out of every 1,000 Americans have the condition.

If the condition is genetic, as Dr. Prayson and the Yale researchers believe the genes responsible for this are relatively rare and rarely expressed.

However, when two members of the same family with similar genetic makeup have a child, the risk of passing on a rare genetic disorder to their children increases.

This is caused by the “inbreeding coefficient,” where inbreeding increases a person’s likelihood of developing some type of health problem.

In a person’s DNA there are alleles, sequences within a person’s strands that they inherit from their mother or father.

Alleles can be dominant or recessive. A dominant allele produces a dominant physical trait in individuals who have a copy of the allele that can come from only one parent.

For example, the brown eye allele is dominant, so you only need one copy of the brown eye allele to have brown eyes.

For traits to come from the recessive gene, both genes must be recessive. For example, the gene for blue eyes is recessive, so to have blue eyes you must have two copies of the “blue eyes” gene from each parent.

The risk of two strangers passing on a recessive genetic disorder to their offspring is small.

But when two blood relatives marry, the risk of passing on this recessive gene is exponentially higher.

Rare genetic defects are almost always caused by a combination of recessive genes, so inbreeding increases their risk.

Twin brothers Henry and John Whittaker fueled the family feud when their two children married and had 15 children of their own

This applies not only to autism, but also to genetic abnormalities such as being born with extra fingers or toes or developing psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder.

With Ray, after repeated inbreeding, the coefficient in his pedigree is much higher than normal.

The man is the son of Gracie and John Whittaker, cousins ​​who are both children of the twins John and Henry Whittaker.

John himself had a scandalous affair and married his cousin Ada Riggs.

The couple had 15 children, one of whom clearly has an intellectual disability.

The other family members live in poverty in Odd.

As they told the filmmaker, the Whittakers seemed unaware that their genetic problems were the result of inbreeding.

They also could not remember much about their parents or other relatives.

In one scene in his short documentary Mr. Laita asked Betty Whittaker why she thought her family had so many disorders, but she said she didn’t know.

Laita continued with Kenneth, specifically asking why her eyes weren’t forward. Kenneth replied, “Maybe coal mining.”