A prospective study of fetal head growth, autistic traits and autism spectrum disorder.
Laura M E Blanken, Alena Dass, Gail Alvares and 14 others
PMID 29356450WHAT IT FOUND
Prenatal head growth trajectories were not associated with later autistic traits.
Smaller head circumference in late pregnancy was linked to higher traits, but it did not predict an autism diagnosis.
Key findings
01Pooled prenatal head growth trajectories were not associated with later autistic traits.
02Smaller head circumference in late pregnancy was associated with higher autistic traits in the pooled analysis.
03Prenatal head growth trajectories and birth head circumference were not associated with a later ASD diagnosis.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The analyses were limited to Caucasian children in each cohort. The first ultrasound was also used to date the pregnancy, which could hide very early growth differences. Autistic traits were measured differently: parent-reported Social Responsiveness Scale at age 6 in the Dutch cohort and self-reported Autism Spectrum Quotient at age 20 in the Australian cohort. ASD cases were small (53 in the Dutch cohort and 10 in the Australian cohort), and the study may be underpowered to detect subtle effects. The methods for identifying ASD cases differed between cohorts, and some cases may have been missed. Australian ultrasound reliability was not available, and the head measurement was a simple oval on one slice rather than 3D imaging.
The easy way to misread this
Do not use fetal head circumference as a marker for autism. The main prenatal growth trajectory finding was null, and the late-pregnancy association did not predict a later ASD diagnosis.