Age of mother-link to autism?

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I would think that in the 40's women continued to bear children into the later years because there wasn't as much birth control around. This is very interesting.

It's not that ages of parents is related to autism specifically... but many sorts of birth defects and conditions can be significantly linked to the quality of the gametes (egg/sperm). Along the same line of thought, it's totally plausible that autism and these other condtions occur often without these conditions. Having older parent(s) could just increase the chance that developmental "errors" occur.

Yes, women are born with all the eggs they will ever have and they have a "shelf life". So they could be degraded or whatever if she waits until much later to have a kid, which could cause any sort of developmental or mal condition for the offspring. Likewise, there is a similar but lesser link* to conditions and "old sperm". Men have a different issue though... It's not that the sperm itself is old because they're produced all the time... It's just that as men get older, there are more errors made in the production of the sperm. If you were to look at them, with age, there are increasing "deformities" ect with the sperm itself, which again, can lead to an assortment of many types of conditions for the kids, not just autism.

*Studies have found higher correlation to abnormal conditions in offspring relating to the age of the egg vs the sperm... Meaning, it's more important to have a "younger" mother than a "younger" father to have a normal, viable offspring. This is just because the egg has most of the necessary material for development ect.

Very good point - and if I may say so, a refreshing degree of rationality from someone neurotypical.

An example: my wife and I married when I was 40 and she was 29. We didn't have our first child until I was 48 and she was 39. Had we been neurotypical we would probably have married and had kids much younger.

Basically, there's more of a chance of any one sperm having a mutation as the father gets older, making the chances of a birth defect slightly higher. It's still extremely low, though. It's also unlikely to be related to autism or asperger's, since any genetic component of the autism spectrum seems to be spread among very many genes, not just a mutation in a single gene.

On the plus side, sperm from older fathers have longer telomeres, which likely improves the children's longevity.

Hi everyone,

I recently read an article on paternal age of dads and a link to autism. An interesting study was undertaken in the UK ans Sweden. In a nutshell the results indicated a link with young and old fathers. The following is the abstract:


Background: Despite extensive efforts, the causes of autism remain unknown. Advancing paternal age
has been associated with various neurodevelopmental disorders. We aim to investigate three unresolved
questions: (a) What is the association between paternal age and autism spectrum disorders (ASD)?;
(b) Does paternal age moderate the genetic and environmental etiological factors for ASD? (c) Does
paternal age affect normal variation in autistic-like traits? Methods: Two nationally representative twin
studies from Sweden (n = 11, 122, assessed at age 9 or 12) and the UK (n = 13, 524, assessed at age 9)
were used. Categorical and continuous measures of ASD, autistic-like traits and autistic similarity were
calculated and compared over paternal age categories. Results: Both cohorts showed a strong association
between paternal age and the risk for ASD. A U-shaped risk association could be discerned since
the offspring of both the youngest and oldest fathers showed an elevation in the risk for ASD. Autistic
similarity increased with advancing paternal age in both monozygotic and dizygotic twins. Both cohorts
showed significantly higher autistic-like traits in the offspring of the youngest and oldest
fathers. Conclusions: Phenomena associated with paternal age are clearly involved in the trajectories
leading to autistic-like traits and ASD. Mechanisms influencing the trajectories might differ between
older and younger fathers. Molecular genetic studies are now needed in order to further understand the
association between paternal age and ASD, as well as normal variation in social, language, and
repetitive behaviors in the general population.

Source:

Lundstrom et al , (2010) Trajectories leading to autism spectrum disorders are affected by paternal age: findings
from two nationally representative twin studies, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry

My thoughts
This opens the debate about appropriate screening verses family planning decisions.

Hope this helps

I'm not sure what you mean by this. For example, my wife and I would prefer for our kids to be like ourselves. Even if there were an appropriate screening test, though, I'm not sure we'd go so far as to abort neurotypicals as we might with downies. Our kids are never going to be exactly the same as we are, and we just have to learn to make the best of that.

I thnk you may of misread, or i didn't write clearly. Apologies if my sentence was flippent.

The screening was for the male at the family planning stage, i.e. before preganancy. This becomes a debate of how the medical science implements a screening procedure and how parents are advised. This could be of national importance when considering birth rates against an ever increasing aging population. So why is this important? Governments have a duty to balance the economic books, as the population age grows, so does the need of producing a generation to provide a service the national GDP. Its all stats, stats for governments around the world.

Therfore if there is a screening and parents decide the risk is too high, they are likely to avoid family life. Also, Autsim is a hot topic in the press, perhaps it will only take the media bandwagon generating all sorts of hype to cause a knee jerk reaction.

Interestingly, as the study shows a 'u shape' result of young and old fathers at more risk (i.e. 25yr male bottom of the bowl, low risk), this could work well for Government's discouraging fathers who are too young and fathers too old.

I'm afraid this is where medical studies become political footballs...

btw, I'm pro-life (with some exceptions) so this wasn't about screening for abortion.

It wasn't that your sentence was flippant. It was that it seemed - and still seems - like you thought that there was a difference in desirability between having neurotypical kids and having aspie kids.

I do somewhat agree with your argument that it would be nice to encourage more economically productive adults, even if I don't think that's necessarily a government responsibility in the way you suggest. Given how today's world is becoming constantly more technical and computerized, I would also note that aspies, who tend to be more numerically oriented, more explicitly logical, and more comfortable with computers than neurotypicals, are likely to be, on average, more productive over their working lifetimes than neurotypicals as well.

That would certainly argue for encouraging people to have aspie children rather than neurotypical children, given the choice. If your study actually indicates a causation rather than a correlation, that would suggest that men should be encouraged to have children either very early or very late, and not some time in the middle. I'd suggest that late in life would be the better of those choices, as it gives the men time to develop some financial and personal stability before taking on the added responsibilities of fatherhood.

I think your use of 'desirability' in the arguement for planning pregnancy for kids is valid. Parent's choices for children come in many guises and needs. Unfortunately, how many times when parents are asked about their unborn childs sex, they exclaim "we don't care as long as the baby is healthy". A popular statement which doesn't hold fact but weight by people. Merely this statement means parents are programmed for a desirable outcome, are they not? So if they have guidance before conception about screening father for the Autism link, does this mean a life choice? Also who are the ones guiding.

Interestingly, we're about to have our third child, our first chid (5) is ASD, our second (4) non-ASD. Our helath professionals gave us the choice of genetic coucelling. This was after conception, our answer was - why? If offered before, perhaps out of interest. The main decision for a third child wasn't an issue.

As for Governments, I believe politics may play a role in screening fathers (if they use studies like this - i hope not). Governments have a way of manipulating peoples opinions and national economics. The biggest headache for most Governments are infrastructure costs of health services and education. These two battle grounds which can be an election winner or loser for political groups. The third element to complete the political triangle is Employment and social welfare.

BTW this is all debate and speculation, possibly the study will wither and die like others.

I'm unsure of this statement, there are pros and cons for all age groups. Maturity is probably the best virtue for a father (and mother), hopefully this leads to wisdom which they pass down to their children.

I have AS and dad likely does too. Mum was 31 and dad was 42 I was his first born

Im 26 now I had my first son when was 19 and he has asperger's and my youngest at 23 and he is lower on the spectrum. My fiance alson has asperger's, I think age has nothing to do with anything, in my case I am sure that it is only genetics.