Maternal age, autistic-like traits and mentalizing as predictors of child autistic-like traits in a population-based cohort.
Novika Purnama Sari, Pauline W Jansen, Laura M E Blanken and 6 others
PMID 35705965WHAT IT FOUND
Maternal age was linked to child autistic-like traits in a U-shape.
Children of mothers aged 20 or younger had higher parent-rated scores than children of mothers aged 25-29. Maternal autistic traits were also linked to child traits.
Key findings
01Maternal age had a curved association with child autistic-like traits; the younger maternal age group had higher child scores than the 25-29 reference group, while the older group did not.
02Higher maternal autistic-like traits were associated with higher child autistic-like traits, and lower maternal mentalizing skills were associated with higher child autistic-like traits.
03Paternal age showed a curved association with child autistic-like traits, but the association was no longer statistically significant after adjusting for maternal age.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Fathers were not assessed on mentalizing skills or autistic-like traits. Paternal mechanisms could not be tested. The maternal mentalizing measure had low reliability (Cronbach alpha 0.64). It may not have captured mentalizing well. Child outcomes were parent-rated autistic-like traits on the Social Responsiveness Scale, not clinical autism diagnosis. Mothers completed both their own autistic-like traits questionnaire and the child behavior ratings. Shared rater bias may inflate associations. Participants were more likely to be older and higher educated than non-responders. Younger mothers were underrepresented. Missing data were substantial for maternal mentalizing skills (30.1%) and maternal autistic traits (36.8%). Multiple imputation was used. The associations were modest. The maternal age quadratic term added 0.007 explained variance.
Declared interests
The paper lists funding from Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that maternal age, paternal age, or maternal mentalizing causes autistic-like traits in children. This is an observational cohort, the associations are modest, and the paternal age association was no longer significant after adjustment for maternal age.