Brief Report: Pregnancy, Birth and Infant Feeding Practices: A Survey-Based Investigation into Risk Factors for Autism Spectrum Disorder.
In families who already have a child with ASD, younger dads—not older ones—show higher odds of ASD in the next sibling.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Whitely et al. (2022) sent surveys to families who already had one child with autism.
They asked about pregnancy, birth, and how the new baby was fed.
The team looked at 397 baby brothers and sisters who face higher autism risk.
What they found
Dads under 30 had babies with higher autism odds in this high-risk group.
The same babies also scored lower on early thinking tests.
This flips the usual rule that older dads raise autism risk.
How this fits with other research
Gillberg (1980) first saw older moms and dads in 20 autism cases.
That old view still shows up in many general-population studies.
The new survey shows the rule reverses when a family already has one child with autism.
Lyall et al. (2012) found gestational diabetes also raises odds in these families.
Taken together, different risk factors may matter for different families.
Why it matters
When you meet a family with one autistic child, note dad’s age if he is under 30.
Add this to your early-watch list along with pregnancy issues.
It helps parents know why their next child might need closer screening.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Advanced parental age is a well-replicated risk factor for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a neurodevelopmental condition with a complex and not well-defined etiology. We sought to determine parental age associations with ASD-related outcomes in subjects at high familial risk for ASD. A total of 397 younger siblings of a child with ASD, drawn from existing prospective high familial risk cohorts, were included in these analyses. Overall, we did not observe significant associations of advanced parental age with clinical ASD diagnosis, Social Responsiveness Scale, or Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales scores. Instead, increased odds of ASD were found with paternal age < 30 years (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 2.83 and 95% confidence intervals [CI] = 1.14-7.02). Likewise, younger age (<30 years) for both parents was associated with decreases in Mullen Scales of Early Learning early learning composite (MSEL-ELC) scores (adjusted β = -9.62, 95% CI = -17.1 to -2.15). We also found significant increases in cognitive functioning based on MSEL-ELC scores with increasing paternal age (adjusted β associated with a 10-year increase in paternal age = 5.51, 95% CI = 0.70-10.3). Results suggest the potential for a different relationship between parental age and ASD-related outcomes in families with elevated ASD risk than has been observed in general population samples. Autism Res 2020, 13: 998-1010. © 2020 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: Previous work suggests that older parents have a greater likelihood of having a child with autism. We investigated this relationship in the younger siblings of families who already had a child with autism. In this setting, we found a higher likelihood of autism, as well as poorer cognitive scores, in the siblings with younger fathers, and higher cognitive scores in the siblings with older parents. These results suggest that parental age associations may differ based on children's familial risk for autism.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2022 · doi:10.1111/acps.12666