P-352 - Impact of parental age of children with autism: Greek pilot study

Abstract

Introduction The last decade the parents of autistic children have become objects of many controversial studies and theories. A lot of studies have revealed a positive relationship between fatheŕs age and the incidence of neurodevelopmental disorders. Objectives/aim In the present study, we investigated the association between paternal age and an increased risk of autism in offspring. Methods Samples consist of 88 autism cases from the Children's Health Center of Thessaly, Greece. Each case was matched with questionnaire on parental education, child's gender, dominant hand, presence of seizures. Six categories of paternal age were created. The relationship between the variables was investigated using Cramer's V correlation coefficient and chi-square tests to explore the relationship between categorical variables. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences v. 18.0 (SPSS) was used. Results The data show a significant association between higher paternal ages and an increased risk of autism presented a strong, positive relation (Cramer's v = 0.468; p = 0.001 Conclusions Our study provides evidence of the association of paternal age and risk of autism. However, the findings in our sample do not constitute a causal relationship but lay the foundations for thought and further research.