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Autism in a recently arrived immigrant population

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Abstract

This study aims to establish whether children of an immigrant maternal population presented with a higher rate of autism than the indigenous population and to explore their presentation with regard to severity of symptoms, demographics and ethnicity. It is a retrospective case note analysis of 366 children who presented to the paediatric developmental service in the Adelaide and Meath incorporating the National Children’s Hospital, Tallaght, Ireland between 2007 and 2009. During the study period, 366 children presented. Fifty-eight children (16 %) had mothers who were born in Africa and 53 (14 %) were born to mothers originating from a wider variety of countries. Two hundred and forty-eight children (68 %) had mothers born in Ireland. Maternal origin was not identified for seven children (2 %). An autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) was diagnosed in 131 children and speech and language delay in 132. Of the children with an ASD diagnosis, a higher proportion of the African cohort 13/18 (72.2 %) presented with moderate/severe cognitive disability compared to the Irish group 9/55(16.3 %), and the children in the African cohort showed a higher heritability with 36.9 % having a positive family history of autism reported compared to 26.3 % of the Irish cohort with an ASD diagnosis. Conclusion: This study highlights an observation of increased rates of ASD among a migrant population derived particularly from children born to mothers originating in Sub-Saharan Africa. This cohort is more severely affected. Further validation in an epidemiological sample is warranted, which if replicated, may help to identify possible aetiological risk factors.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the support given by the National Children's Hospital Foundation to this work. We would like to acknowledge the support given by Barbara Fox in the data collection stage of the project.

Conflict of interest

This work was supported by a grant from the National Children’s Hospital Foundation. There is no conflict of interest due to this.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Trinity Centre for Health Sciences, St. James’s Hospital, James’s St, Dublin 8, Ireland

    Suzanne Bolton & Stephanie Kelly

  2. Department of Community Paediatrics, Adelaide and Meath incorporating the National Children’s Hospital Tallaght, Dublin, Ireland

    Suzanne Bolton

  3. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Trinity College Dublin, Trinity Centre for Health Sciences, St. James’s Hospital, James’s St., Dublin, Ireland

    Suzanne Bolton

  4. Adelaide and Meath incorporating the National Children’s Hospital Tallaght, Dublin, Ireland

    Denise McDonald & Emma Curtis

  5. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Louise Gallagher

Authors
  1. Suzanne Bolton
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  2. Denise McDonald
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  3. Emma Curtis
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  4. Stephanie Kelly
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  5. Louise Gallagher
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Correspondence to Suzanne Bolton.

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Bolton, S., McDonald, D., Curtis, E. et al. Autism in a recently arrived immigrant population. Eur J Pediatr 173, 337–343 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00431-013-2149-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00431-013-2149-6

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