Gestational Age in Autistic Children and Adolescents: Prevalence and Effects on Autism Phenotype.
Miriam I Martini, Inge Merkelbach, Sander Begeer
PMID 35129797WHAT IT FOUND
No difference in autistic traits, behaviour or IQ was found across preterm, full-term and post-term autistic children and adolescents.
Preterm and post-term birth were more common than in matched controls.
Key findings
01Gestational age group was not associated with autistic traits, comorbid symptoms or IQ within the autism sample after controlling for sex and maternal age at birth.
02Preterm and post-term birth rates were elevated in the autism sample compared with the matched general population sample.
03Autism risk was reported as 1.8-fold higher for preterm birth and 4.5 times higher for post-term birth compared with full-term counterparts.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The data are cross-sectional, so they cannot show that gestational age caused autism. Autism diagnosis, autistic traits, behaviour and IQ were mostly parent-reported, so misclassification or imprecision could influence the results. The phenotype regression used only 187 autistic children and adolescents, including 16 preterm and 24 post-term, so it had limited information for comparing groups. The sample was mostly from families with medium to high parental education and mostly Dutch, which may limit generalisability. Most preterm births were moderate to late preterm, with few extremely preterm births, so the study says little about the most premature group. Participants were diagnosed under DSM-IV or DSM-5 criteria, which can differ in who is included on the autism spectrum. Medical comorbidities were not considered.
Declared interests
Karolinska Institute is named as the funder.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that preterm or post-term birth causes autism. The study is cross-sectional and compares groups at one time point. Do not assume that an autistic child born post-term has different autistic traits, behaviour or IQ. The analysis found no association between gestational age and these outcomes.