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"Another hypothesis is that people who have children at advanced ages may do so because they themselves are “on the spectrum,” and may have social difficulties

"Another hypothesis is that people who have children at advanced ages may do so because they themselves are “on the spectrum,” and may have social difficulties that made it tough for them to couple up and become parents for much of their early adult lives; in these cases, researchers theorize, there may be a genetic link to autism." Ouch. I wonder if there's any truth to this, it's certainly an interesting hypothesis!

tsotha 11y ago
It wouldn't explain why the incidence of autism is increasing, though.
- ekianjo 11y ago
  That is, I think, explained by the fact that they have broadened quite a bit the definition of autism in recent history -> and higher awareness from parents results in higher diagnosis rates. Hardly surprising.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  There is also the contribution of assortative mating.
- wil421 11y ago
  Do we really know if it is increasing? Or has our ability to detect it increased? I wonder the same things about cancer and I believe that in the past 50+ years we have identified more types of cancer. Same with autism, the spectrum has broadened in the past decades. People who were once just plain weird or different for my parents generation could now be classified as having autism in my generation. It would be interesting to see a study if cancer or autism are actually increasing or if we are just now finding diseases that have plagued mankind for generations.
  - dghf 11y ago
    I was under the impression that at least part of the perceived rise in cancer was because more people used to die of things like heart disease in their sixties or even fifties, and thus didn't live long enough to get cancer. (I have no links or data to back this up.)
  - __z 11y ago
    >I wonder the same things about cancer and I believe that in the past 50+ years we have identified more types of cancer. I wrote a long post about this a few weeks ago but the long story short is YES! We absolutely have detected more (asymptomatic) cancers with increased screening of healthy people. Here's my previous post - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9621249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9621249 Here's some random links: https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/screening-for-disease-in-people-without-symptoms-the-reality/ https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/screening-for-disease-i... https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-skeptical-look-at-screening-tests/ https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-skeptical-look-at-scr... >Prostate cancer is very common but isn’t always harmful. It is found in 80% of autopsies where the men died of something else. Many more men die with prostate cancer than because of it. >The screening test for prostate cancer is a blood test for prostate-specific antigen (PSA). This is not a yes-or-no test. It must be interpreted in the context of the patient’s age and risk factors and the rate of rise, and any cut-off level is arbitrary and will miss some small percentage of cancers. If the PSA test is positive, the next step is biopsy. Typically, 12 needle biopsies are done, 6 on each side. They find cancer in 25% of patients. But if you go back and do more biopsies, you’ll find cancer in 25% more patients. Theoretically, if you could see every cell in the prostate, you might be able to find a cancer cell or two in almost everyone, most of which would never progress or kill the patient. So you have to decide how many biopsies are reasonable. If you find cancer on a biopsy, the next step is treatment, and treatments for prostate cancer are not benign. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/11/overkill-atul-gawande http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/11/overkill-atul-g... >we’ve assumed, he says, that cancers are all like rabbits that you want to catch before they escape the barnyard pen. But some are more like birds—the most aggressive cancers have already taken flight before you can discover them, which is why some people still die from cancer, despite early detection. And lots are more like turtles. They aren’t going anywhere. Removing them won’t make any difference. >Over the past two decades, we’ve tripled the number of thyroid cancers we detect and remove in the United States, but we haven’t reduced the death rate at all. In South Korea, widespread ultrasound screening has led to a fifteen-fold increase in detection of small thyroid cancers. Thyroid cancer is now the No. 1 cancer diagnosed and treated in that country. But, as Welch points out, the death rate hasn’t dropped one iota there, either. (Meanwhile, the number of people with permanent complications from thyroid surgery has skyrocketed.) It’s all over-diagnosis. We’re just catching turtles.
- pavel_lishin 11y ago
  I have a theory that the folk tales of changelings - babies being stolen by and replaced with fairies - are probably sparked by children with autism in the past. From what I understand, sometimes a child can seem to be developing neurotypically for a long time before developing symptoms of Asperger's or autism pretty suddenly. If you're a farmer in 1400, your child suddenly stops being communicative, and effectively turns into a different person. Obviously fairies did it.
  - salgernon 11y ago
    Related discussion (where I mention the same conclusion, not that I'm an expert, someone else mentioned a book about this subject.) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9245022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9245022
- randomdata 11y ago
  Assuming it is increasing and not a matter of it simply being detected more frequently, perhaps it has become easier for parents 'on the spectrum' to eventually find partners? The rise of online dating comes to mind.
jmkni 11y ago
After the clusterfuck that was MMR -> Autism in the 90's, I'm wary of any news stories linking anything to Autism. This is an interesting angle though.
rlpb 11y ago
It's great to see this kind of point made in articles intended for the public, rather than imply causation where it has not been shown. I feel that this is a major step forward for popular science reporting; the journalist deserves credit here. Another great example from the same article: “Risk doesn’t mean cause,” he notes. “These are risk factors helping us to understand ideological pathways — but not a cause in itself.”
__z 11y ago
Blah, I think this is really simplistic and assumes way too much and doesn't look at the big picture. The group that is delaying childbirth the most are college educated women. The assumption (which may or may not have value) is that college educated and career focused women are delaying childbirth to focus on finishing school and establishing their careers first, not that they are "bad at coupling up" because they have social difficulties. I have a personal hypothesis that college educated women may be "bad a coupling up" because they can afford to be more picky - they may not feel a need to get married or be in a relationship for economic security so they can delay "settling down with someone" until they find a more desirable partner. Or even that being college educated makes you have higher standards. (not sure about that part) Combine that with the fact that this group is very unlikely to have a child out of wedlock. http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/03/getting-married-later-is-great-for-college-educated-women/274040/ http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/03/getting-mar... >College-educated women are unlikely to have a child before getting married For college-educated women, the average age of first birth (30) has risen along with the average age of marriage (27). Only 12 percent of births by college graduates are to unmarried women. >Women without college degrees are very likely to have a child before getting married Less-educated women have a much different experience with marriage and childbirth. For women without a college degree, the average age of first birth has not risen apace with the average age of marriage. The average age of first birth for this group is lower than the average marriage age. For women who dropped out of high school, the average age of first birth is 20, while the average marriage age is 25; 83 percent of first births in this demographic are to unmarried mothers. For women who graduated from high school and went to some college, the average age for first birth is 24 and the average marriage age is 27; 58 percent of first births are to unwed mothers. (This isn't even taking into the consideration that the change in the diagnostic criteria for autism has changed...)

tsotha 11y ago

It wouldn't explain why the incidence of autism is increasing, though.

ekianjo 11y ago
That is, I think, explained by the fact that they have broadened quite a bit the definition of autism in recent history -> and higher awareness from parents results in higher diagnosis rates. Hardly surprising.
danieltillett 11y ago
There is also the contribution of assortative mating.
wil421 11y ago
Do we really know if it is increasing? Or has our ability to detect it increased? I wonder the same things about cancer and I believe that in the past 50+ years we have identified more types of cancer. Same with autism, the spectrum has broadened in the past decades. People who were once just plain weird or different for my parents generation could now be classified as having autism in my generation. It would be interesting to see a study if cancer or autism are actually increasing or if we are just now finding diseases that have plagued mankind for generations.
- dghf 11y ago
  I was under the impression that at least part of the perceived rise in cancer was because more people used to die of things like heart disease in their sixties or even fifties, and thus didn't live long enough to get cancer. (I have no links or data to back this up.)
- __z 11y ago
  >I wonder the same things about cancer and I believe that in the past 50+ years we have identified more types of cancer. I wrote a long post about this a few weeks ago but the long story short is YES! We absolutely have detected more (asymptomatic) cancers with increased screening of healthy people. Here's my previous post - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9621249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9621249 Here's some random links: https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/screening-for-disease-in-people-without-symptoms-the-reality/ https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/screening-for-disease-i... https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-skeptical-look-at-screening-tests/ https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-skeptical-look-at-scr... >Prostate cancer is very common but isn’t always harmful. It is found in 80% of autopsies where the men died of something else. Many more men die with prostate cancer than because of it. >The screening test for prostate cancer is a blood test for prostate-specific antigen (PSA). This is not a yes-or-no test. It must be interpreted in the context of the patient’s age and risk factors and the rate of rise, and any cut-off level is arbitrary and will miss some small percentage of cancers. If the PSA test is positive, the next step is biopsy. Typically, 12 needle biopsies are done, 6 on each side. They find cancer in 25% of patients. But if you go back and do more biopsies, you’ll find cancer in 25% more patients. Theoretically, if you could see every cell in the prostate, you might be able to find a cancer cell or two in almost everyone, most of which would never progress or kill the patient. So you have to decide how many biopsies are reasonable. If you find cancer on a biopsy, the next step is treatment, and treatments for prostate cancer are not benign. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/11/overkill-atul-gawande http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/11/overkill-atul-g... >we’ve assumed, he says, that cancers are all like rabbits that you want to catch before they escape the barnyard pen. But some are more like birds—the most aggressive cancers have already taken flight before you can discover them, which is why some people still die from cancer, despite early detection. And lots are more like turtles. They aren’t going anywhere. Removing them won’t make any difference. >Over the past two decades, we’ve tripled the number of thyroid cancers we detect and remove in the United States, but we haven’t reduced the death rate at all. In South Korea, widespread ultrasound screening has led to a fifteen-fold increase in detection of small thyroid cancers. Thyroid cancer is now the No. 1 cancer diagnosed and treated in that country. But, as Welch points out, the death rate hasn’t dropped one iota there, either. (Meanwhile, the number of people with permanent complications from thyroid surgery has skyrocketed.) It’s all over-diagnosis. We’re just catching turtles.
pavel_lishin 11y ago
I have a theory that the folk tales of changelings - babies being stolen by and replaced with fairies - are probably sparked by children with autism in the past. From what I understand, sometimes a child can seem to be developing neurotypically for a long time before developing symptoms of Asperger's or autism pretty suddenly. If you're a farmer in 1400, your child suddenly stops being communicative, and effectively turns into a different person. Obviously fairies did it.
- salgernon 11y ago
  Related discussion (where I mention the same conclusion, not that I'm an expert, someone else mentioned a book about this subject.) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9245022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9245022
randomdata 11y ago
Assuming it is increasing and not a matter of it simply being detected more frequently, perhaps it has become easier for parents 'on the spectrum' to eventually find partners? The rise of online dating comes to mind.

jmkni 11y ago

After the clusterfuck that was MMR -> Autism in the 90's, I'm wary of any news stories linking anything to Autism. This is an interesting angle though.

rlpb 11y ago

It's great to see this kind of point made in articles intended for the public, rather than imply causation where it has not been shown. I feel that this is a major step forward for popular science reporting; the journalist deserves credit here. Another great example from the same article: “Risk doesn’t mean cause,” he notes. “These are risk factors helping us to understand ideological pathways — but not a cause in itself.”

__z 11y ago

Blah, I think this is really simplistic and assumes way too much and doesn't look at the big picture. The group that is delaying childbirth the most are college educated women. The assumption (which may or may not have value) is that college educated and career focused women are delaying childbirth to focus on finishing school and establishing their careers first, not that they are "bad at coupling up" because they have social difficulties. I have a personal hypothesis that college educated women may be "bad a coupling up" because they can afford to be more picky - they may not feel a need to get married or be in a relationship for economic security so they can delay "settling down with someone" until they find a more desirable partner. Or even that being college educated makes you have higher standards. (not sure about that part) Combine that with the fact that this group is very unlikely to have a child out of wedlock. http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/03/getting-married-later-is-great-for-college-educated-women/274040/ http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/03/getting-mar... >College-educated women are unlikely to have a child before getting married For college-educated women, the average age of first birth (30) has risen along with the average age of marriage (27). Only 12 percent of births by college graduates are to unmarried women. >Women without college degrees are very likely to have a child before getting married Less-educated women have a much different experience with marriage and childbirth. For women without a college degree, the average age of first birth has not risen apace with the average age of marriage. The average age of first birth for this group is lower than the average marriage age. For women who dropped out of high school, the average age of first birth is 20, while the average marriage age is 25; 83 percent of first births in this demographic are to unmarried mothers. For women who graduated from high school and went to some college, the average age for first birth is 24 and the average marriage age is 27; 58 percent of first births are to unwed mothers. (This isn't even taking into the consideration that the change in the diagnostic criteria for autism has changed...)