Autism genetics expert Ivan Iossifov breaks down recent research that sheds light on how unaffected parents can pass autism onto their child. Parents with no history of autism in their families have a child who is diagnosed with the disorder.
Research has shown that the vast majority of autistic children are born to parents who do not have autism. However, if one parent has autism, their child may be more likely to exhibit certain traits or behaviors associated with autism, such as difficulty with social communication or sensory processing.
Family ties: Children with an autistic parent or siblings have nine times the usual odds of having autism.
Does The Father Or Mother Carry The Autism Gene? Autism was always thought to have a maternal inheritance component, however, research suggests that the rarer variants associated with the disorder are usually inherited from the father.
Since autism is less prevalent in females, autism was always thought to be passed down from the mother. However, research suggests that autism genes are usually inherited from the father.
There are many different factors that have been identified that may make a child more likely to have ASD, including environmental, biologic, and genetic factors.
Parents who have a child with ASD have a 2 to 18 percent chance of having a second child who is also affected. Studies have shown that among identical twins, if one child has autism, the other will be affected about 36 to 95 percent of the time.
High levels of stress during pregnancy may also be connected to autism in children. This connection appears to have the most impact when the parent experiences stress between weeks 25 and 28 of pregnancy.
Advances in diagnostic capabilities and greater understanding and awareness of autism spectrum disorder seem to be largely driving the increase, the Rutgers researchers said. But there's probably more to the story: Genetic factors, and perhaps some environmental ones, too, might also be contributing to the trend.
“Firstborn offspring of two older parents,” Durkin's study noted, “were three times more likely to develop autism than were third- or later-born offspring of mothers aged twenty to thirty-four and fathers aged under forty years.”
Autism genetics expert Ivan Iossifov breaks down recent research that sheds light on how unaffected parents can pass autism onto their child. Parents with no history of autism in their families have a child who is diagnosed with the disorder.
Anxiety, depression, and other mood disorders. Communication challenges. Difficulties with emotional regulation. Executive functioning problems.
Just like any other adults, people on the autism spectrum can be exemplary parents. An acceptance and appreciation of their autism and access to appropriate support for themselves and their families can help them to effectively manage the unique challenges they face.
Family Risk of Autism
The chances of anyone in the general population having an autistic child are about 1 in 1000 or 0.1%. So, while the risk is real, the chances of you and your husband having an autistic child are still very low.
There's no way to prevent autism spectrum disorder, but there are treatment options. Early diagnosis and intervention is most helpful and can improve behavior, skills and language development. However, intervention is helpful at any age.
Normal, autistic brains register faces differently
Babies headed toward autism lack the fundamental building blocks of social skills: They ignore human faces and voices, even their mother's, and they fail to make eye contact with or imitate adults.
1 in 100 children are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder as of 2021. Autism prevalence has increased 178% since 2000. The country with the highest rate of diagnosed autism in the world is Qatar, and the country with the lowest rate is France.
In a pair of new reports — one focused on 8-year-olds and one on 4-year-olds — the CDC found that 1 out of every 36 children has autism. This is a significant increase from the 2021 estimate of 1 in 44, which was a big jump from 1 in 110 in 2006.
Autism is not caused by malnutrition or food-related challenges, but, for many people, there is a connection between autism and food. Research suggests that food-related challenges have a significant impact on many people who are diagnosed on the autism spectrum.
It is important to note that autism is not a birth injury or brain injury. However, many birth injuries such as cerebral palsy are primarily caused by damage to the brain during childbirth. Children with autism have structural differences in their brains, including abnormalities of the brain's white matter.
The Autism–PTSD Connection
Again: child abuse is not the cause of autism. However, children who are severely abused—most disturbingly the 170,000 warehoused in Romanian orphanages in the 1960s through '80s—often develop behaviors, such as social withdrawal and repetitive movements, that resemble autism.
Anxiety disorders are among the common comorbidities of autism spectrum disorder. The reason for this overlap is still under investigation. However, several treatments for anxiety may deliver positive results for people with both anxiety and autism spectrum disorder.
Among all families affected by autism, up to 19 percent have more than one child with the disorder, according to one large study. Multiplex families, especially those who have twins, have led to many of the breakthroughs in our understanding of autism.
In the United States, prenatal genetic testing (PGT) for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is currently available via clinical genetic services. Such testing may inform parents about their unborn child's risk for ASD, prepare parents for the birth of an affected infant, and allow them to arrange for early interventions.
Prenatal exposure to air pollution or certain pesticides. Maternal obesity, diabetes, or immune system disorders. Extreme prematurity or very low birth weight. Any birth difficulty leading to periods of oxygen deprivation to the baby's brain.