Autistic Kids More Likely to Have Parents With Mental Illness

Parents of children with autism have double the odds of having been hospitalized for a psychiatric condition than parents of children without autism, according to a comprehensive review of Swedish medical registries.

Eventually, the information may provide a way for experts to start untangling the complex genetic and environmental interactions involved in different psychiatric conditions, including autism.

i.e. schizophrenia, depression and personality disorders -- across generations, but that there is more a complex genetic diathesis, a genetic vulnerability, which increases the risk for autism and perhaps other psychiatric illness mediated by unknown developmental and psychosocial variables that are associated with the 'turning on and off' of certain genes," explained one expert, Dr. Jon Shaw, director of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

"This study might help us pinpoint some more genetic ties to more cases [of autism]," added study lead author Julie Daniels, ...