Autism: Does Parent Age Play A Role? Cause(s) Still Speculative
May 10, 2010
By Admin
If you’re a parent, your children are your life. And if you’re like most parents, you become an expert on anything relating to childcare, your children’s health and wellbeing, whether it’s a tiny scrape or special needs requiring skilled care. Sometimes this can be fairly simple, black and white almost. But what about gray area? When I talk about “gray area,” autism stands out. Lately, it seems that there is so much published on this condition lately (still mostly speculative), it could make every parent’s head spin.

One recent study published in the journal Autism Research suggests that an intricate equation may exist between the age of both the mother and father, as reported by Roni Caryn Rabin in the Times. Older mothers are more likely than younger ones to have a child with autism, and older fathers significantly contribute to the risk when their partners are under 30. Researchers analyzed almost five million births in California during the 1990s, and 12,159 autism cases were diagnosed in those children. This sample was large enough to examine how the risk of autism was affected when one parent was a specific age and the other was the same age or considerably older or younger.

Previous research found that the risk of autism grew with the age of the father. But the new study suggests that when the father was over 40 and the mother under 30, the increased risk was especially pronounced – 59 percent greater than for younger men. And every five-year increase in a mother’s age raised her risk of having a child with autism by 18 percent.

By: Erin Schmidt


www.brightstarcare.com/kidcare/special-needs-care
www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/health/09autism.html