Older Fathers And Sporadic Autism Studies Find Autism Connected to Increasing Paternal But Not Maternal Age

The Simons Simplex Collection is designed to help researchers studying genetic alterations in the sperm or eggs — but that are not found in other tissues — in parents of autistic children. "Such sporadic mutations may be behind a large fraction of autism cases," Rutgers said, which may explain the increased incidence of autism in offspring of parents "Fathers" my addition---- having children later in life.



Tischfield said the study will look into the link between the high frequency of large DNA deletions present in autism cases where only one child in a family is affected. Tischfield added that in families that present more than one or even several autistic children "there is probably a defect in a gene that is inherited in the usual sense" rather than a sporadic mutation.