Tag Archives: birth order

A new study from scientists associated with the Baby Siblings Research Consortium finds that the risk for autism spectrum disorder in children with older siblings who have autism is 18.7 percent. According to CNN, the study monitored 664 infants from infancy to 36 months who had an older brother or sister with autism. These recent findings are much higher than previous studies that found a recurrence risk of three percent to 10 percent. The risk for autism recurrence is even higher in families with more than one affected sibling–33 percent. The study also noted that male infants experienced a 26 percent risk for autism, three times greater than female infants’ risk of nine percent. Parental age, older sibling gender and birth order were not predictors of autism, in that a second child born with autism increases the third child’s risk even if the first child does not have the disorder….
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