to think rising levels of neuro diverse children in society is partly due to rising ages of pregnant mothers?

[staydazzling]

im not condeming anything here btw, i would like to make that clear. and i know this may not go down well on here, donning hard hat but whenever theres discussions about how neurological diversity in children has risen ASD, ADHD etc in society, the conversion is often about MMR Ipads or diet, discipline etc which of course all important variables but i feel its unhelpful that a lot of would be mothers are not informed of the risk past 35, of downs syndrome, autism etc, its obviously much better financially to be older and have a family. aibu to feel its the elephant inthe room regarding rising levels of children with ASD, ADHD, Etc??

I don't think there is any evidence that prematurity causes autism.

Really? I was a 'geriatric' mother, as were most of my friends - we all had our kids in our late 30s/early 40s. There's not a single neurodiverse child among us.

The kids with ASD and ADHD at my children's school all seem to have much younger parents.

You can't say "I think" and "AIBU" on a topic like this which is about statistical analysis and not opinions. Go on pubmed and do some research.

Someone upthread mentioned pollution and that we are exposed to far more of it these days. Is that really true? We've got a different type of pollution certainly but I think anyone who time travelled from Victorian London for example would probably be amazed at how clean the air is.

I was 23 when I gave birth to my eldest who has ASD...I think you are barking up the wrong tree OP

On the subject of pollution, levels of dementia have interestingly declined since leaded petrol was banned.

@Devereux1

• I know several senior people in mental health. I think the starting point is not to group all these conditions/behaviours together. Autism for example has a strong genetic component. ADHD doesn't*

That may or may not be true (I’m not a researcher or medical professional), but there is a lot of comorbidity between these two conditions.

My DS has ASC (PDA) and ADHD (received his autism diagnosis at 5 yrs and his ADHD diagnosis at 14 yrs) and there is a big overlap in the way they both affect executive functioning, social interaction etc, so I find it interesting that both condition are quite prevalent on my side of the family.

I gave birth late 30s/40s

My children have ADHD, ADD and dyslexia.

Having been through the testing with them I don’t think it had anything to do with what age I was when I gave birth but more to do with the fact I am more than likely ADHD and dyslexic.

The testing for these things in the 60s, 70s etc was virtually non existent so I would look at the parents having an undiagnosed condition rather than the age of the mother when she gave birth

I always imagine that so-called "high functioning" autism was much easier to deal with and mask in ye olden days.

Society was slower, calmer and quieter. It had clear rigid codes of conduct, hierarchy and expectations. And there were higher infant mortality rates - if you had a baby that didn't eat, for example, then it didn't survive.

I'm another one who's pretty sure the rising levels are just down to better ability to diagnose and earlier testing on the grounds that early intervention is better than late.

Rising levels of people diagnosed with asd and other neurodevelopmental disorders are down to a lot of things and I doubt they can be attributed to one thing.

Sure age and quality of health will attribute to the health of babies in the womb but genetics and mutations are a big factor.

For asd there are over 200 sequences of dna that are linked with asd making it hard to pinpoint any one sequence or find a rhyme or reason for it.

My dc has asd and adhd and I had her at 19yrs old, her dgm on her dads side had an asd diagnosis in the last few years, so it is easy to say it is genetic now.
But, before I suspected it was due to issues in pregnancy, low birth weight linked with underdeveloped umbilical cord, meaning lack of nutrition etc given to the baby and pre-eclampsia. Induced and premature birth and so on.

It is easy to see patterns but you need to find stuff to back it up.

Even though her dgm has asd I still haven't ruled out my side of things as I don't have the facts, even if it is the most plausible.

Why would you start a thread about a highly emotive subject about which you have no factual knowledge @staydazzling ?

If you have some genuine reason for 'wondering' then you ask a genuine question e.g. "are there any studies that indicate a link between maternal age and asd / neurodiversity?"

What you did was put forward was your opinion and ask others for their opinions in response. Not simply unhelpful it is potentially deeply distressing to individuals and damaging to the people's understanding of a massively complex issue.

This is how myths become quoted as fact and it makes me so angry.

As PPs have pointed out, the research currently points to older paternal age being a factor but maternal age being more confusing.

At best your thread is ignorant and thoughtless. At worst it is goady and nasty.

I've seen research that indicates older fathers are more likely to have asd kids. I actually think it's a case of older, more educated parents are more likely to seek formal diagnosis, that said my dd was diagnosed at 2, and we were both fairly young

My husband has adhd (his mum was 19). I believe its genetic as my sons all have adhd

YABU

And whether you meant to be or not, offensive

A lot will account for improvements in diagnosis over the years. When DH was a child, the dyslexia test was just to look at the colour dots (like testing for colour blindness) and if you could see the numbers you weren't dyslexic. Testing and diagnosis has improved a lot over the years.

There may be an age link from mother, father or both with a genetic mutation in ageing (in the same way that Down's syndrome is more likely with older mothers) but who knows. I wonder whether it is more a case of it having been undiagnosed in the past and that actually there is a genetic basis for ASD and similar conditions where it is from a recessive gene and so is more common in families with similar diagnoses. We may see more investigation into it in the future and the lack of recognition in the past is what has hampered any scientific basis being discovered yet.

I think genetics is a huge factor.

I have three children - DD1 is NT, DD2 has ASD, DS has ASD/ADHD and other neurodiversities. My SIL (DHs sister) has two children one NT and one with ASD/ADHD.

DH and I were the children who never really fit in, had we been children now he would be diagnosed with ASD and I would have with ADHD (inattentive type) and sensory processing disorder.

We were in our 20’s when we had our three children so age wasn’t a factor for us.

@fuckitywhy I'm only 50 but I have no doubt my DS would have done 'better' in education if he'd gone to 'my' primary school. Rote learning, very structured classrooms, hardly any verbal reasoning, few discussion groups...

i feel its unhelpful that a lot of would be mothers are not informed of the risk past 35, of downs syndrome, autism etc,

the increased risk of DS is very well known and communicated. Would be mothers over 35 are not informed about the risk of autism because there is (currently) no known risk. HTH

What I have heard is that they think ASD might be linked to the risking age of FATHERS. Of course older mothers mean older fathers too.

Ps my DD's asd is almost certainly inherited from her dad

Correlation does not equal causation. The single most important factor in the rise of ASD is actually having the tools to diagnose it.

@NonUrinatInVentum do you have any peer reviewed sources for your “theory”?

I'm on the side of genetics/more awareness now. Dh has been diagnosed with ASD following the diagnosis of our son and his son from a previous relationship. Half of the kids on his side of the family have a diagnosis of ASD. I'm willing to bet if you looked closely at the older generations you would see the same, except nobody was diagnosed back then.
It's a funny old thing, even dhs mother who is very understanding about the kids in the family with ASD doesn't seem to take dhs diagnosis seriously because 'he was fine' as a kid(dh says differently) and she doesn't see the struggles he has now. People seem happy enough to accept it in kids but much more reluctant to accept in adults, or accept that it is more than just 'a label' and actually does cause challenges for adults who have it too.

I haven't bothered with the whole thread, sorry, but this is just odd. DS has SPD. I am confident that even 30 years ago, rather than being diagnosed and supported (and believe me, relatively low levels of support make an astonishing amount of difference) he would have been labelled as "difficult" or "stupid" and largely dismissed. I am absolutely certain that I also have mild SPD and that my brother probably has mild dyslexia - but support or understanding of either was pretty much non existent when we were children.

So this idea that these conditions are on the rise is, I think, complete poppycock. Rather, we have a better understanding of why certain children behave a certain way and have more tools to help those children to achieve and thrive in a world that previously was not able to support them at all.

I think I might find a toy boy.