No relation between advanced parental age and the risk of autism among Jordanian children

Abstract EN

Objective : To examine the relationship between advancing parental age, at the time of conception of offspring, and their risk of autism in Jordan.

Methods : A multicenter descriptive correlational study, conducted in the period between the 1st of August 2010 and the 1st of January 2011.

We included all registered cases of Autism in eleven specialized centers dealing with autistic children, recognized by The National Council for Family Affairs, The Ministry of Education, and The Ministry of Social Affairs, from Irbid in the north to Aqaba in the south.

In the present study, we investigated the association of autism with parental age in 229 autism cases from Jordan.

Patients were fulfilling the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 10th Revision criteria for the diagnosis of autism.

The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 10 programs were used to analyze the data ; Non-Parametric tests ; χ2 test, and frequencies were applied to analyze the relation between parental age at the time of conception and the risk of autism.

Statistically significant results were those with a P-value < 0.05.

Results : There was no significant increase in the risk of autism with advancing parental age.

Moreover, Autism was more frequent in the offspring of parents aged (25-35) years at the time of conception.

In the majority of cases 127 / 229 (55.46%), paternal age at the time of conception ranked in the age group of (25-35) years old, χ2 = 181.463, df = 3, which was found to be of highly statistical significance with a P-value of < 0.0001.

Maternal age at the time of conception also ranked in the age group of (25-35) years, 134/229 (58.51%), χ2 = 71.642, df = 2, it was highly statistically significant with a P-value of < 0.0001.

Conclusion : No relation between advanced parental age and the occurrence of Autism.

Moreover, Autism was more frequent in parents who were aged less than 35 years old at the time of conception.