New Research on Possible Autism Causes

February 23, 2010 at 5:54 AM | Posted in Interesting Information | 1 Comment
Tags: autism, online speech therapy, speech therapy

Following the revocation of the study that linked the MMR vaccine to the increase in Autism, more research has been completed to determine why there has been such an increase in recent years.  In an article  posted on HealthDay written by Jennifer Thomas a new link has been determined.

This article reports that children born to older moms have a higher risk of Autism.  So how did they make this link?  Researchers looked at nearly 5 million birth records from California.  They looked at births that occurred between 1990 and 1999 which is when Autism increased 600 percent across the state.  They found that the risk of having a child diagnosed with Autism rose 18% across 5 year blocks in the woman’s age.  For example a woman at 35 is 18% more likely than a woman at 30 to have a child with Autism.  This study did not find a link between the age of the father and an increase in autism, with one noted exception: if the father was significantly older than the mother.  For example, a man over 40 having a child with a woman under 30 has almost a 60% increased risk of having a child with Autism versus a man between the ages of 25 and 29 having a child with a younger woman.

It was reported that between 1982 and 2004 the number of women having babies over the age of 40 increased 300%.  There was a disclaimer to this statistic saying that this increase probably accounted to less than 5% of the statewide increase in children diagnosed with Autism during the 1990s.  “Advancing maternal age is contributing only a very small proportion of the increase in autism cases,” said study author Janie Shelton, a UC Davis doctoral student.

The article also stated that most likely there is not one, isolated cause of the increase in the number of children diagnosed with Autism but multiple factors.  It appears that advanced maternal age is one of those factors.  These results are not surprising giving the already known risks of having a child at an advanced maternal age.  Women having a baby over the age of 35 are at risk for other issues such as miscarriage, low birth-weight babies and chromosomal disorders such as Down’s Syndrome and other congenital abnormalities.

The article also states that about 1 in 110 children in the United States has been diagnosed with Autism.  It is noted that Autism is a spectrum disorder thus the symptoms can range from mild to profound.  The children included in this study received support services due to a diagnosis of Autism.  Support services include speech therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, music therapy, behavioral therapy, etc.

Speech therapy is designed to maximize communication skills using a variety of skills and strategies to help encourage and promote meaningful communication. For some, speech therapy may also target pragmatic language skills (social interaction skills).  Speech therapy is an effective tool to help children with Autism integrate into the world around them.

For more information about speech therapy and Autism please feel free to contact one of our speech pathologists at 877-480-7913 or through our website by clicking on the link below:

Online Speech Therapy provided by Independent Speech ~ www.independentspeech.com