To ask you about the link between older mums having children who are diagnosed with autism

[mytartanscarf]

This is something I worry about because I will undoubtedly be an 'older mum' if I do go on to have a child.

I have a brother with autism so I am also conscious of genetic factors.

Could anyone talk to me/reassure me? :)

Ispent - I just don't necessarily want threads being brought into threads which I think as a general rule is a fair request surely?

I don't want to name change every time I post! :)

The only parents who can have autistic children are those who are either autistic themselves or carrying the autistic gene from their own parents.

There are no other causes, triggers etc. Though the "spectrum" of traits to describe it has been widened, so that if you have say one trait you might be labeled whereas in the past you'd need 3 or 4 traits to "qualify"

I agree with Fizzy but I think ASD can skip many generations before re-appearing again.

I just posted without thinking tbh! I got carried away

Apologies

Autism is not entirely genetic. This has been proven through research looking into autism and autistic traits in identical twins, non-identical twins, and siblings. When 1 sibling has autism the prevalence with other siblings is greater the closer the sibling is genetically. But we know it's not solely genetic because the prevalence is not 100% in identical twins where 1 has autism.

Yes Tiz, thats the term I use - genetic predispostion.

fizzy I,m not autistic and neither is dh and neither are any of our parents the geneticists believe ds chromosome deletion has caused his autism and learning difficulties these are genes that are deleted thius can be inhertited from a parent but it wasent in ds case it was denovo it was just a mutation that occurred randomly on conception.

Fizzy I have to disagree with you. Autism is not 100 % genetic. Definitely not.

Sorry I didn't say it was "100% genetic" - but its proven it HAS to be there, somewhere in the genes, no matter what may have triggered it along the way.

I am going to try and dig out the article I read about this which was very clear. I don't know if I'm going to find it fast enough for this thread though....

Though the "spectrum" of traits to describe it has been widened, so that if you have say one trait you might be labeled whereas in the past you'd need 3 or 4 traits to "qualify"

Fizzy you get a diagnosis, not a 'label' and to get a diagnosis you would need to meet a criteria based on the triad of impairments:

difficulty with social communication
difficulty with social interaction
difficulty with social imagination.

not on one 'trait'.

Sibling and dad on spectrum. I had DS in my late 30s and NT, as far as we know.

(And to all of you saying "autism isn't the worst thing" - well, no, but it can be the source of a huge amount of distress, both for the person living with autism and for their carers, so not something to be blithe about.)

(Well, not quite NT. He has a Thing, but it isn't on the spectrum, and I hope it won't cause him too much trouble.)

DH is a geneticist and says the most important factor is genes.
DD has ASD and I had her when I was 30 (and DH 32). I was 32 with DS1 and 36 with DS2. My sons had an elevated risk (something like 20%) of having ASD but they are "normal".

I am currently attending a course for parents with ASD children, the majority of children are boys and there are a fair number of siblings affected. The experience of ASD is hugely varied though, even between siblings, some like DD are high functioning and seem mildly affected (mainstream education, not statemented) others are quite disabled.

I knew within days of her birth things were not quite right with DD, same as I knew immediately her brothers were fine.

Early bird+ sapat? I,m on it at the moment very interesting ,no parents of girls we all have boys on my course.

I have ASD. My parents were both 16 when I was born and I am, as far as anyone knows, the only person in my family (I have four younger half siblings, all of whom are NT) with any form of autism although obviously I may well have ancestors/relatives with it that are so far back in the mists of time that everyone has forgotten about it.

My husband has ASD as did his mother (diagnosed) and probably both of her parents too. I think his parents had both recently graduated when he was born so were in their early twenties?

I have four sons - the two eldest (born when I was 19 and 23) and the youngest (born when I was 34) are all NT. The third, born when I was 30 and my husband was 22, is currently in the final stages of getting his ASD diagnosis.

Er, not sure if this is helpful exactly but I suppose all data is interesting in this situation. I really do feel for you, OP, as it must be a real worry.

haven't read all the replies, but another anecdote.....
I had DS1 (aspergers and dyspraxia) at 28, DS2 at 30 and DS3 at 40, and they are both NT.

Interesting anecdotes. My exH's DF was particularly old when exH was born, 46. ExFIL was very quirky, but exH, despite being a programmer, is NT. I am NT, but my DDad was 36 when I was born. DS1 is geeky, but NT, DS2 has ASD, DS3 is quirky as anything but will never get a DX. We were 32, 34 and 37 having the DSs. I have a physics degree, exH Maths.

I guess we are very typical of the parents of DC with ASD. Partly genetic, as in quirky relations and STEM subjects, partly age of father and age of grandfather.

OP, you have a proven higher risk of having a DC with ASD, due to your DB. I wouldn't be without my dS2, but you are right to be giving it some thought.

No, people with autism have children later, because their social skills are way behind. At 25 I was like a 16 year old. My parents had children young, and made a complete mess of it (both on the spectrum). They were more interested in their special interests, than parenting.

What I missed, of course, is that in my family ASD is entirely genetic, and nothing do to with age

I just took an online aspergers test quiz (on aspergerstest.net) and I scored 26 out of 50. Here's the score rationale:

0-11 low result – indicating no tendency at all towards autistic traits.
11-21 is the average result that people get (many women average around 15 and men around 17)
22-25 shows autistic tendencies slightly above the population average
26-31 gives a borderline indication of an autism spectrum disorder. It is also possible to have aspergers or mild autism within this range.
32-50 indicates a strong likelihood of Asperger syndrome or autism.
In fact, scores of 32 or above are one of strong indicators of having as ASD.

I think you are right to be concerned, but given that so much around autism lacks a cause/effect understanding, I think it shouldn't dominate your thoughts.

Even if there was found to be a relationship found between older parent(s) and autism it might not be the cause of it - like having a raincoat on doesn't cause more car accidents, the rain causes it.

If you thought parents on the spectrum are most likely to pass this genetic risk to their children. Parents on the spectrum may not meet their partners and develop a relationship until later, due to the social challenges they face. Thus potentially parents with the highest risk of passing this genetic material may have their children later, thus skewing the results that "older parents have more chance of autistic children". Maybe those parents would have had the same risk of having autistic children whatever age they were, but for social reasons didn't meet/marry partners until later in life. Similarly carriers (and not on the spectrum themselves) might have children later due to factors completely unrelated to autism, but that again puts them in that "older parent" group.