Autism rises with older maternal age
Feb. 8th, 2010 12:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
According to this, anyway.
Dr. Edwin Cook, an autism researcher with University of Illinois at Chicago, offered a novel theory for why autism is more common among children with older parents: Autism is known to run in families and it may be that adults with mild or undiagnosed autism have children at later ages, Cook said.
Not that novel, it was my very first thought when reading the headline. Admittedly, having it be my very first thought doesn't necessarily mean anything, but it definitely was what I thought.
Dr. Edwin Cook, an autism researcher with University of Illinois at Chicago, offered a novel theory for why autism is more common among children with older parents: Autism is known to run in families and it may be that adults with mild or undiagnosed autism have children at later ages, Cook said.
Not that novel, it was my very first thought when reading the headline. Admittedly, having it be my very first thought doesn't necessarily mean anything, but it definitely was what I thought.
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-08 06:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-08 06:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-08 10:07 pm (UTC)And I think that on the other hand, if it is in fact the case that something about mothers being older induces autism, you'd expect to find higher rates of autism among second and third children than among first children in the same families.
I wonder, though, about the finding that fathers' ages don't make much difference. Are autistic mothers more likely to have children relatively late (compared to non-autistic mothers) than autistic fathers are?