Autism Risk Rises With Age Of Father

Part of the article in the Washington Post published when the Reichenberg et al. study was published last September.

Large Study Finds Strong Correlation

By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 5, 2006; Page A01


Children born to fathers of advancing age are at significantly higher risk of developing autism compared with children born to younger fathers, according a comprehensive study published yesterday that offers surprising new insight into one of the most feared disorders of the brain.



With every decade of advancing age starting with men in their teens and twenties, the new study found, older fathers pose a growing risk to their children when it comes to autism -- unhappy evidence that the medical risks associated with late parenthood are not just the province of older mothers, as much previous research has suggested.

Of special concern is the finding that the risk for autism not only increases with paternal age but also appears to accelerate.

When fathers are in their thirties, children have about 1 1/2 times the risk of developing autism of children of fathers in their teens and twenties. Compared with the offspring of the youngest fathers, children of fathers in their forties have more than five times the risk of developing autism, and children of fathers in their fifties have more than nine times the risk