Autism Explained?

There have been may explanations offered for why autism is diagnosed much more frequently today than in the past. No doubt that as awareness of the condition has increased, parents, educators, and doctors are more alert to identifying certain challenges as autistic.

But many other reasons are offered, including the view that vaccines laced with thimerosal are a cause. This theory has been debunked as junk science, as the recent scandal involving the Lancet medical journal illustrates.

But the Wall Street Journal reports on a study that offers real evidence as to why autism is increasing. The study shows that the likelihood of autism increases significantly with the age of the mother, and to a lesser extent the age of the father, at the child's birth. And since maternal and paternal age has been increasing the past couple decades, we now have a plausible reason why the incidence of autism has risen during this time period.

It would be interesting if researchers could study the change in the incidence of autism over the past couple decades holding constant maternal age. Then we could see if there remained an increase in autism due to reasons other than maternal age.