Advanced Aternal Age and Autism

Autism is a brain disorder also known as social communicative disorder that typically affects a person's ability to communicate, form relationships with others, and respond appropriately to the environment. Some people with autism are relatively high-functioning, with speech and intelligence intact. Others are mentally retarded, mute, or have serious language delays. For some, autism makes them seem closed off and shut down; others seem locked into repetitive behaviours and rigid patterns of thinking. Among other causal factors like vaccines, genetics, immunological disorders, environmental toxins, nature of delivery and maternal infections etc. etc., maternal aging is playing an important role in the development of autism. Older mothers are more likely to have a child who develops an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) than are younger mothers. The study was designed to find out the possible causal relationship between maternal aging and the development of autism. 200 subjects were taken for this study. The age range of the participants varied from 3 to 12 or 13 years. The samples were diagnosed through Autism Checklist (AC) and Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS). Later the total participants were segmented into three groups according to their mothers' age levels such as 20 to 30 years, 30 to 35 and 35 to 40 years. All the mothers were compared with each other with respect to their prevailing ages at the time of conception, and any other complications such as illnesses, accidents or miscarriages if they had overcome during their gestation period. It was found from the result that 9 percent of autistic children were having mothers coming below the age of 30 years. The increase in autistic cases moved to 27 percent and 64 percent at 30-35 and 35-40 years of maternal age respectively. However, the risk of having a child with autism was not influenced by the fathers' age. The relationship with fathers' age was not clear. It was also noticed that fathers of 40 or above the age of 40 years only had an increased risk of having a child with autism when the mothers were under the age of 30 years. However, it was concluded that advanced maternal age is linked to a significantly elevated risk of having a child with autism, regardless of the father's age. Maternal age is just one risk factor that is interacting with other genetic and environmental factors that lead to a child developing autism.