Autism rises with older maternal age

[conuly]

According to this, anyway.

Dr. Edwin Cook, an autism researcher with University of Illinois at Chicago, offered a novel theory for why autism is more common among children with older parents: Autism is known to run in families and it may be that adults with mild or undiagnosed autism have children at later ages, Cook said.

Not that novel, it was my very first thought when reading the headline. Admittedly, having it be my very first thought doesn't necessarily mean anything, but it definitely was what I thought.

Comments

[griffen.livejournal.com]

Well, in science, a "novel theory" is one that isn't based on prior research theories. It's not the same thing as "nobody's ever thought of this before" or "unusual" so much as "has no basis in prior research."

[conuly]

Oh!