Associations between accelerated parental biologic age, autism spectrum disorder, social traits, and developmental and cognitive outcomes in their children

Abstract

Our findings suggest epigenetic aging could play a role in parental age risks on child brain development. Lay SummaryParental age is a risk factor for ASD; however, little is known about possible biologic aging changes that contribute to this association. We found that mothers with faster epigenetic aging and fathers with slower epigenetic aging, relative to their chronologic age, were at increased odds of having a child with ASD and/or decreased early learning, at 3 years of age. These findings suggest epigenetic aging in parents may play a role in neurodevelopment and ASD.