Elder paternal and maternal ages both are linked to having an autistic kid, a new study suggests.

For the study, researchers at the UTHealth compared 68 sex- and age-matched, case-control pairs from their Jamaica study, which was conducted by UTHealth in collaboration with The University of the West Indies.

Lead investigator, Mohammad Hossein Rahbar from UTHealth, said, “This should apply to remaining inconsistencies in earlier researches showing that only parental age or only maternal age are associated with having a autistic kid.”

Rahbar further added: “The findings of the study shows that father’s age and mother’s age both are linked to autism in their kids.”

In the study, investigators found that mothers with autistic kids were on average six and a half years older than women without autistic kids. Likewise, the age difference between the fathers of the two groups was 5.9 years.

In earlier researches, Rahbar said that use of statistical models made it hard to assess both paternal and maternal age as combined risk factors, a hitch known as multicollinearity. To avoid this problem, more complicated statistical models were used by him.

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) are complicated, behavioral and neurodevelopmental disorders described by impairments in social communication and interaction and obsessive, sometimes recurring, behaviors. Even the CDC estimates that one in every 100 kids is suffering from ASD.

The Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders had given a place to the research in its February issue. The study data was assembled at the UWI and made use of an existing database prepared by co-author of the study Maureen Samms-Vaughan from UWI.