Tag Archives: autism children

Autism risk declines in later-born children?

The risk of certain autism spectrum disorders is highest in firstborn children and declines in each additional sibling born to the same mother, reports a large Finnish study published 28 January in Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology1.

When the researchers looked at Asperger syndrome, pervasive developmental disorder–not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) and childhood autism, in which symptoms appear before the age of 3, as a group, they found that a diagnosis is most common in firstborns. The latter two conditions are now considered part of the autism diagnosis.

When they looked at each diagnosis separately, the researchers found that the firstborn effect holds for Asperger and PDD-NOS, while second-born children are at the highest risk for childhood autism.

The relationship between birth order and autism risk is still unclear, with some studies finding the greatest risk among firstborn children2, 3, or in the first- and fourth-born siblings4. Some of the studies are small, however, or did not factor in whether the relationship changes with family size.

Parsing the results is important because it might gives clues to environmental causes of the disorder. For instance, high blood pressure and steroid hormone levels in the mother can change with each pregnancy.

In the new study, the researchers used the Finnish Prenatal Study of Autism, a registry of people born from 1987 to 2005, to identify 4,459 people with autism spectrum disorders and 17,130 controls. They relied on the Finnish Central Population Register to find siblings who share a biological mother.

The second-born child has about 50 percent higher odds of having childhood autism than the firstborn, the study found. It’s possible that pregnant women who already have one child may catch infections from their firstborns, resulting in inflammation. Increased inflammation early in pregnancy is associated with autism risk. However, this theory does not explain why later-born children are not at increased risk of childhood autism.

These results from the new study are similar to those of a 2011 PLoS One study, which found that autism risk is greatest for second-born children in families that have multiple children with the disorder. Unlike the new research, however, the 2011 study found that autism risk increases for later-born children in families that have only one child with autism.

The new study found that the relationship between autism risk and birth order does not change with family size. It also found that autism risk continues to decrease with each birth regardless of intellectual disability.

News and Opinion articles on SFARI.org are editorially independent of the Simons Foundation.

References:

1: Cheslack-Postava K. et al. Paediatr. Perinat. Epidemiol. 28, 58-66 (2014) PubMed

2: Bilder D. et al. Pediatrics 123, 1293-1300 (2009) PubMed

3: Glasson E.J. et al. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 61, 618-627 (2004) PubMed

4: Piven J. et al. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry 32, 1256-1263 (1993) PubMed

Autism: Facts and Fallacies Lets clear some things up:)

First: “autism” is not a diagnosis, but a term used to describe the wide spectrum of autistic disorders, ranging from Autistic Disorder, to Asperger’s, to Pervasive Developmental Disorder NOS.

Second: children with “autism” are, far more often than not, loving, affectionate, and empathic (to one degree or another) especially with their family members.

Third: These children are typically not mentally retarded but, rather, intelligent. However, their language deficits often interfere with learning.

Fourth: the “epidemic” is among the higher functioning types of autism. The rates of children with ‘Autistic Disorder’ have always been, and remain, at about 1-2% of the population. The reason for the increase in rates for these ‘higher functioning’ kiddos (often those diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder or Asperger’s) may be due to some environmental toxin and that practitioners are now diagnosing children who would have ‘slipped through the cracks’ years ago.

Finally: we don’t know what causes autism, but there is growing evidence that vaccinations don’t. Hope that helps to clear things up. Lets hear your response. God bless.

Autism, Eye Contact; What Babies Are Telling Us.

ATLANTA — How long a baby looks into people’s eyes provides an early sign of whether the child will probably develop autism, research has shown.

Infants who later developed autism began spending less time gazing into people’s eyes between 2 and 6 months of age, according to a study by the Marcus Autism Center in Atlanta.

But building off this research, a new Marcus Center analysis found that some babies with declining eye fixation undergo a “course correction” at 18 months. They show an increase in gazing — and don’t develop autism.

This phenomenon, the authors say, could mean there’s a “window of opportunity” for early treatment and intervention, and it may be a feasible goal to foster such “course corrections” in a larger number of children at greater genetic risk for autism.

Their findings were presented at the world’s largest autism research conference, the International Meeting For Autism Research (IMFAR), taking place in Atlanta this week.

More than 1,700 researchers, delegates, autism specialists and students are gathering to exchange the latest scientific findings and stimulate research into the nature, causes and treatments for autism.

One in 68 U.S. children has an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a 30 percent increase from 1 in 88 two years ago, according to a March report by the CDC. Georgia has a slightly higher autism rate than the national average, which may reflect the better services and awareness in the state.

The disorder is characterized by difficulties with social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication and repetitive behaviors.

There is no known cure for autism. But Autism Speaks, a national autism science and advocacy organization, says nearly half of autistic children who receive early intervention with applied behavioral therapy will recover “typical function” and another 40 percent will improve significantly.

Warren Jones, director of research at the Marcus Autism Center, and lead author of the new study, told GHN on Thursday that the children that showed a “course correction’’ actually began that change at 9 months old.

“Those infants found a way to learn about the social world,” making the change without treatment, Jones said.

But treatment could help babies who show greater vulnerability of developing autism, he said.

The average age of autism diagnosis is 4.5 to 5 years old. Jones said at some specialty clinics, diagnoses can be achieved at 18 to 24 months.

The Marcus Center, where more than 5,700 children received diagnostic and treatment services in 2013, currently has a treatment study of children 12 months old who have had early vulnerabilities identified.

“There has been an enormous increase in autism research,” Jones said. “We still have enormous amounts to learn.”

Do parents’ jobs matter?

A second study that garnered some interest at the conference is one that tracked the occupations of parents who have children with autism.

A researcher at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston discovered that certain jobs may be linked to a higher rate of children placed on the autism spectrum.

Aisha Dickerson of the Houston center used data from two previous studies with 273 children ages 7 to 18 years.

In these cases, fathers of the children were six times more likely to work in health care and four times more likely to work in finance, after adjustment for demographic variables, the analysis found.

Dickerson said Thursday that she divided the occupations into technical (not people-oriented) and non-technical (jobs that are people-oriented, such as teaching). She said she accounted for socioeconomic status in the analysis.

These parents of children with autism, she said, “may have characteristic symptoms or behaviors similar to autism.”

David Mandell, associate director of the Center for Autism Research at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, when asked to comment about the research, expressed reservations about it. He said that among other things, the occupation categories appeared too broad.

Dickerson told GHN she began the analysis after learning that many scientists and engineers had children with autism.

But she emphasized that she does not want to imply in her study “that people in technical occupations will have an autistic child.”

“It’s an exploratory analysis,’’ Dickerson said.