Another Study Leaves Me with More Questions than Answers
A study completed at Kaiser Permanente was recently published in April’s Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine that suggests older parents have a higher risk of having an autistic child than younger parents do.
The study, which identified 593 children who had been diagnosed with autism out of 132,844 children born in Northern Californian Kaiser Permanente hospitals, found an incidence rate for autism of 1 in 123 for mothers over 40 compared to 1 in 156 for mothers 25 to 29, and 1 in 116 for men over 40 as compared to 1 in 176 for men 25 to 29. The study concluded that autism rates are higher in older, Caucasian, non-Hispanic parents with more education.
It’s studies like this that make me want to scream. I’m no researcher, but even I can spot the major flaw in this study: it only examines children WHO HAVE BEEN DIAGNOSED WITH AUTISM. For me to actually buy into this study, I’d need to see evidence that they evaluated the remaining 132,251 children who were born in their hospitals. It makes sense that older parents with more education would have children diagnosed with autism, because those are the people who would have the resources available as well as the knowledge that something isn’t quite right.
When it comes to low-functioning autism, it’s often readily apparent that the child isn’t neurotypical, but what about high-functioning kids? Many children with Asperger’s diagnoses don’t have issues that are transparent to the casual observer, and may be viewed as simply “quirky” or “eccentric.” In addition, autism seems to be discussed a great deal more by folks with more education.
This is a study that will most likely be quoted for years when it comes to autism diagnoses, and yet it actually answers nothing. If anything, it may lead people to conclude that a child isn’t on the autism spectrum simply because it’s less likely based on age, race, and education.
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