Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a pervasive neurodevelopmental disorder that brings heavy burdens to families and the society. This case-control study explored risk factors for ASD based on 74,252 children aged 3–12 years who were recruited from general education kindergartens, primary schools, and special education schools in Shanghai, China. One hundred ninety-two children were identified with ASD according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—Fifth Edition. Male sex, the presence of anoxia or asphyxia at birth, artificial feeding, adverse maternal psychological status, complications during pregnancy and higher paternal education were associated with ASD even after controlling for age, residential district, family history of mental disorders, parental personality, and amount of daily TV viewing.
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The research leading to these results received funding from Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission (Grant No. 21Y11905500) and Multi-disciplinary Project Cultivation Fund of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (Grant No. YG2021QN111).
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Xingming Jin, Hong Huang, Yiwen Zhang and Zhijuan Jin designed the study; You Yang, Hong Huang, Zhijuan Jin and Xingming Jin contributed to the conduct of the study; Yuanyuan Lin drafted the manuscript and performed statistical analyses; Yuanyuan Lin, Guanghai Wang, You Yang, Yiwen Zhang and Zhijuan Jin contributed to interpretation of the results and critically reviewed the manuscript; Zhijuan Jin had primary responsibility for final content. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
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Lin, Y., Wang, G., Yang, Y. et al. Risk factors for ASD. J Autism Dev Disord 53, 2954–2963 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05603-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05603-1