People’s lives might change in an instant. What if your child was diagnosed with Autism? How would you react and adjust ? You will wonder what could the causes be? The spectrum disorder known as autism is a very well-known disorder that affects many people, usually children. A study conducted says “In 2018 the CDC determined that approximately 1 in 59 children is diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). 1 in 37 boys and 1 in 151 girls” which proves that boys have the tendency to get autism four times more than girls.” The same study also states that, “31% of children with ASD have an intellectual disability (intelligence quotient [IQ] <70), 25% are in the borderline range (IQ 71–85), and 44% have IQ scores in the average to above average range (i.e., IQ >85).” (Autism facts and figures, 2018). O’Callaghan, (2002) states that “Like epilepsy or cerebral palsy, autism is not a single disease but a name (deriving from the Greek ‘autos’, meaning ‘self’) given to a behavioral phenotype that may have many etiologies.” Autism usually affects the child’s learning abilities, communication skills and an autistic child would not normally engage in social interaction. To this day there is no specific cause of autism that has been proved by anyone yet but, in-fact there are a lot of factors that might promote the cause of autism in a child including Age and congenital complications.
First, one cause of Autism in children is Genetics. Studies have proved that older parents are more likely to have a child with Autism. Most people think that it’s the mothers age that matters more as older and really young women mostly resulted in conceiving a greater number of Autistic children. However, the fathers age also matters equally, medical tests proved that the sperms of older men has accumulated many spontaneous mutations which tends to get passed to the children (DeWeerdt, 2017.) For example a study that was done by Epidemiologists in 2006 had a goal of calculating how often men of different ages had a child with autism. The results of this, after going through the medical records of 132,000 Israeli adolescents showed that men in their 30s had 1.6 times higher risk than men under 30 and men in 40s risk was even higher (DeWeerdt, 2017). This study was also one of the first studies to be done regarding this topic. Later on, research, records and studies based on an international data set on 5.7 million children revealed that most of the children who seemed to have autism had older fathers. Other Swedish studies based on medical records conducted in 2014 hinted that males older than 45 had an increased risk of about 75 percent of having an autistic child compared to men in their 20s. On the other hand, some parents have autism traits that are passed to their children even if they don’t suffer from autism themselves regardless of their age. Furthermore, other studies based on the mothers age revealed that, “Autism rates were 18 percent higher among children born to teen moms than among those born to moms in their 20s. Autism rates were 15 percent higher in children born to mothers in their 40s, compared to those born to moms in their 20s” (Large study on parents age and autism, 2015.).
Second, Prenatal causes sometimes have a lot to do with a child having autism. Amaral (2017) discusses how prenatal struggles seem to be the cause of a child being autistic, however, this varies according to researches and studies. It could be due to the mother facing prenatal infections and other problems before giving birth. This also discusses how Autism could be caused if the mother has Autoimmune disorders. Furthermore, autistic behavior tends to be caused by Rubella in pregnant women, For example studies that were conducted among 243 children regarding this case revealed that mostly they suffered from neurodevelopmental disorder, intellectual disability, which affected 37 percent of the sample. 9 of them were also diagnosed with autism, without intellectual disability, some had a possible diagnosis and 8 a partial syndrome of autism. These numbers would translate to an autism prevalence of 741 per 10,000 rubella-exposed children. Mothers who used drugs seemed to have children who showed autistic characteristics. Specific vaccines can affect children as well. studies were conducted to reveal the cause of how twins could be affected with autism and what are the most known factors that caused it (Amaral, 2017). A study performed by Amaral (2017) on 11 identical twin pairs showed that 9 of them had autism or another cognitive impairment and it revealed that both of the twins had the disorder. In contrast to that, when the same study was performed on fraternal twins only one of 10 had the disorder and seemed to have suffered from direct damage to the brain which caused the disorder in the first place. This proved that if one of identical twins is affected with the disorder, then it is most likely that the other twin would also have the disorder where as it can be a completely different for fraternal twins due to some genetic reasons. Folstein and Rutter paper cited that there have been a total of 13 twin studies focused on autism. All have come to a conclusion of genetic and environmental contributions to autism, although results have varied substantially.
Autism is considered as a severe disorder that should be given more attention. The causes include Age and congenital complications. The way you deal with an affected child plays a big role of helping them get through it and differs depending on the severity. It is different for everyone keeping in mind that its causes are also different. Parents could try to prevent some factors which cause autism by keeping in mind how their young or old age could cause their child to develop autism. They could prevent congenital complications by trying to avoid any factors that could possibly increase their risks.
References
- Amaral, D. (2017). Examining the causes of Autism: Cerebrum. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5501015/
- Autism speaks. (2015, June,9). Large study on parent age & autism finds increased risk with teen moms. Retrieved from https://autismspeaks.org
- Autism speaks. (2018). Autism facts and figures. Retrieved from https://autismspeaks.org
- Deweerdt ,S. (2017, December,16) The link between autism and older parents is clear, but the why is not. Washington post. retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/the-link-between-autism-and-older-parents-is-clear-but-the-why-is-not/2017/12/15/dbe03284-dc62-11e7-b859-fb0995360725_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.3ef4ae8f1d2a
- Deweerdt ,S. (2017,November ,29). Spectrum. The link between parental age and autism, explained. Retrieved from https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/link-parental-age-autism-explained/