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Parental migration and Asperger’s syndrome

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Abstract

Parental immigration has been suggested as a possible risk factor for autism spectrum disorders (ASD), but findings have been inconsistent. Very few studies have focused specifically on Asperger’s syndrome. The aim of this study was to examine the association between maternal and paternal immigration and the diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome in offspring. The study was a nested case–control study based on a national birth cohort in Finland. Children born in 1987–2005 and diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome by the year 2007 were identified from the Finnish Hospital Discharge Register (N = 1,783). Four matched controls for each case were selected from the Finnish Medical Birth Register (N = 7,106). Information on maternal and paternal country of birth and mother tongue was collected from the Finnish Central Population Register. The study showed that children whose parents are both immigrants have a significantly lower likelihood of being diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome than those with two Finnish parents [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 0.2, 95 % confidence interval (CI) 0.1–0.4]. No significant associations were found between having only one immigrant parent and the diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome. A regional analysis showed a significantly decreased likelihood of the diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome in children whose mother (aOR 0.1, 95 % CI 0.01–0.5) or father (aOR 0.2, 95 % CI 0.05–0.5) was born in Sub-Saharan Africa. The findings may help in identifying risk factors for different ASD subtypes. On the other hand, they might reflect service use of immigrant families in Finland.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by Autism Speaks, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) 1K02-MH65422 and 5-T32-MH-13043, and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences 1R01ES019004.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Centre for Child Psychiatry, University of Turku, Lemminkäisenkatu 3/Teutori, 20014, Turku, Finland

    Venla Lehti, Mika Gissler, Susanna Hinkka-Yli-Salomäki & Andre Sourander

  2. Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, USA

    Keely Cheslack-Postava & Alan S. Brown

  3. National Institute of Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland

    Mika Gissler

  4. Nordic School of Public Health, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Mika Gissler

  5. Department of Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, USA

    Alan S. Brown & Andre Sourander

Authors
  1. Venla Lehti
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  2. Keely Cheslack-Postava
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  3. Mika Gissler
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  4. Susanna Hinkka-Yli-Salomäki
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  5. Alan S. Brown
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  6. Andre Sourander
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Correspondence to Venla Lehti.

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Lehti, V., Cheslack-Postava, K., Gissler, M. et al. Parental migration and Asperger’s syndrome. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 24, 941–948 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-014-0643-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-014-0643-7

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