Study - Better chance of being Autistic if bright dad

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ASPartOfMe
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15 May 2017, 12:10 am

Children of Smart Fathers Have Higher Risk of Autism Kids of men with IQs of 111 or higher were one third more likely to develop the disorder, but the increased risk was "very slight”

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Children whose fathers are highly intelligent are at a 31 percent higher risk of autism than those whose fathers are of average intelligence, according to unpublished results presented today at the 2017 International Meeting for Autism Research in San Francisco, California.
The work supports observations that date back to the 1940s, when Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger noted in separate reports that the fathers of children with autism tended to be highly intelligent and in several cases worked in technical fields. A 2012 study also showed that children from regions in the Netherlands where high-tech jobs are prevalent are more likely to have autism than those who live in other regions.

In the new study, lead investigator Renee Gardner, assistant professor at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, set out to investigate whether the historical lore has validity. She and her colleagues matched medical records for 309,803 children whose fathers were conscripted into the Swedish military with their father’s scores on the technical portion of the Swedish intelligence quotient (IQ) test.

They found a one-third higher risk of autism in children whose fathers’ IQ scores are 111 or higher than in those whose fathers’ scores cluster around 100. The researchers controlled for possible confounding factors such as families’ socioeconomic status and parental age, education level and history of inpatient psychiatric treatment.

They found the opposite relationship between a father’s IQ and his child’s chances of having intellectual disability or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In particular, children of men with an IQ of 75 or below had a four-and-a-half times higher risk of intellectual disability. The chance of ADHD was 65 percent higher than average for children whose fathers had an IQ in that low range

What’s more, the work is missing the second half of the genetic puzzle: intelligence data from the children’s mothers


I think the study is picking up significant confirmation bias in diagnostic outcomes.


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EzraS
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15 May 2017, 1:52 am

Ah ha so it's all my dad's fault.



248RPA
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15 May 2017, 4:38 am

That reminds me:

Here are some studies showing strange, coincidental correlations


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EzraS
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15 May 2017, 8:05 am

I want to be granted thousands of dollars to do a study of if a child has a better chance of being autistic if the mother breathed more through her mouth than her nose. Unless someone already beat me to it



lostonearth35
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15 May 2017, 9:16 am

My dad dropped out of school in grade 7.

I still think he is very smart, however. He knows a lot about gardening and fishing and is skilled when it comes to building and repairing many things When I was around 13, he built me a beautiful double-sized bed that I slept in for many years. How many dads these days actually do that? :)



Lintar
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15 May 2017, 7:59 pm

Neither of my parents were very bright (they didn't even complete secondary school), so I guess this could mean that I don't have either autism or Asperger's Syndrome after all.



B19
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29 May 2017, 12:09 am

We have discussed issues relating to announcements of finding from the same Institute in the past. The two studies I have seen were both based not on experimental research methods at all; the results again in this study are based on data mining, using information which was originally collected for different purposes. It's not reliable.

The claim itself might be true - or partly true; however proof of the kind they offer is fraught with complications and confounding variables.

And the gender bias in their data mining makes their claims even more shaky.



Claradoon
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29 May 2017, 12:23 am

My father was the one with the IQ (the army said). But the 'two peas in a pod' were me and Mom.



cyberdad
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29 May 2017, 2:22 am

I know three fathers with autistic kids and all 4 of us have actually worked as university researchers and (speaking for the others at least) are all very bright and all have some autistic traits ourselves

My wife finally admitted that maybe I should go get a diagnosis myself but I honestly can't be bothered. My IQ is 129 so I guess I fall into this critical high risk group with an IQ > 111



CrossedHannah
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29 May 2017, 3:27 am

I never spoke as an adult with my dad, but I don't think he is that smart. Neither is my mom, at least when it comes to IQ. Both me and my sis are pretty smart and a bit mentally unstable, though.



Lintar
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29 May 2017, 8:05 pm

Well, my own father was as thick as a brick, so I guess I'm not "on the spectrum" after all.

(Oops, I already responded above. I tried to delete this, but it wouldn't let me for some reason).



cyberdad
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29 May 2017, 9:23 pm

Lintar wrote:
Well, my own father was as thick as a brick, so I guess I'm not "on the spectrum" after all.

(Oops, I already responded above. I tried to delete this, but it wouldn't let me for some reason).


Family are often not the best judge as my wife thinks I'm also as "thick as a brick" (to quote one of my favourite Jethro Tull songs)



Scorpius14
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30 May 2017, 7:24 am

my dad and other siblings have the 'creative' gene maybe that sort of affected my brain chemistry but I wouldn't say he was smart as he left school at 16 to do a job in sales and has worked that line of work all his life, but still manages to provide for 3 kids and do well for himself. I still think my neurodiversity was caused by my mom drinking in her pregnancy as I know she's a very impulsive drinker, which might be why I have taken to a liking of wine over everything else.



248RPA
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31 May 2017, 2:41 pm

I heard about a concept called heterozygote advantage. To my understanding, it's basically this: People with one copy of a recessive condition's gene are healthy and have advantage over normal people. However, people with 2 copies of the gene will have symptoms of the condition. For example, if you have one cystic fibrosis gene, you are healthy & immune to cholera. If you have 2 CF genes, you have CF.

Perhaps the researchers were trying to see if autism is a result of heterozygote advantage in some cases? ie, if the someone has one copy of a gene, it would somehow (directly or indirectly) result in high intelligence. But if they have 2 copies of the gene, it would somehow result in autism. Perhaps they made some kind of hypothesis like that?

I'm not saying that it's a good hypothesis. Just trying to make sense of what they were thinking.


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Kraichgauer
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01 Jun 2017, 1:32 am

My dad was extremely intelligent, and I'm certain if he was ever diagnosed, he would have been found to be an Aspie. And hey, this is a compliment to me, as I'm a dad!


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