Extremely preterm birth and autistic traits in young adulthood: the EPICure study.
Helen O'Reilly, Yanyan Ni, Samantha Johnson and 2 others
PMID 33957985WHAT IT FOUND
The main autistic-trait score was not significantly higher after the study's strict correction for many tests, but extremely preterm young adults had more traits, especially pragmatic language, and more exceeded the trait cut-off.
Key findings
01Extremely preterm young adults had higher Broader Autism Phenotype Questionnaire total and subscale scores than term-born controls, but the mean-score difference did not remain significant after the study's correction for multiple comparisons.
02More extremely preterm young adults exceeded the Broader Autism Phenotype Questionnaire cut-off than controls, with 31.2% versus 8.5% and an adjusted odds ratio of 4.87.
03Extremely preterm young adults scored lower on empathy and emotion recognition, but those differences were not significant after IQ was included in the adjustment.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Over 50% of extremely preterm and control participants were lost to follow-up, and the extremely preterm participants assessed at 19 years had higher socio-economic status and IQ than those not assessed, so the results may not represent all survivors. The study was intended to be experimenter blind, but group allocation was inadvertently disclosed for most participants. Autism diagnosis at 19 years was based on self-report in a clinical interview, not a standardised diagnostic measure. The main Broader Autism Phenotype Questionnaire mean difference did not survive correction for multiple comparisons, and empathy and emotion recognition differences were not significant after IQ adjustment. The Broader Autism Phenotype Questionnaire measures subclinical traits, not diagnostic autism, so higher scores do not mean participants meet autism criteria.
Declared interests
The supplied text lists the article as supported by non-U.S. government research funding, but it does not give a named funder or author conflict-of-interest disclosure.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that extremely preterm birth causes autism or that every extremely preterm young adult has autism. The main trait score did not survive the study's strict correction for many tests, the Broader Autism Phenotype Questionnaire measures subclinical traits rather than diagnostic features, and just less than 70% of extremely preterm participants did not have elevated traits.