The Association Between Parental Age and Autism‐Related Outcomes in Children at High Familial Risk for Autism

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 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.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Apr 21, 2020
Source ID
10.1002/aur.2303

Entities

People

  • Christine Ladd‐acosta
  • Craig J. Newschaffer
  • Daniel S. Messinger
  • Elizabeth Kauffman
  • Heather C. Hazlett
  • Heather E Volk
  • Joseph Piven
  • Juhi Pandey
  • Kelly Botteron
  • Kristen Lyall
  • Lanxin Song
  • Lisa A Croen
  • M. Daniele Fallin
  • Rebecca Landa
  • Rebecca Schmidt
  • Robert T. Schultz
  • Sally Ozonoff
  • Stephen R. Dager
  • Wendy L Stone

Organizations

  • Autism Speaks
  • Center for Scientific Review
  • Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
  • Drexel University
  • Environmental Protection Agency
  • Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
  • Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
  • Johns Hopkins University
  • National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
  • National Institute of Mental Health
  • National Institutes of Health
  • Pennsylvania State University
  • United States Department of Defense
  • United States Environmental Protection Agency
  • University of California, Davis
  • University of Miami
  • University of North Carolina
  • University of Washington
  • Washington University in St. Louis

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Medicine
  • Psychology

Readers

  • Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse Science in Autism Spectrum Disorders.
  • Molecular and genetic basis of cancer.
  • Psychometric Testing or Psychological Assessment.