Department of Psychology at the the University of Essex.
Medical Research Council (MRC) Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London.
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2014 Feb;53(2):221-30. doi: 10.1016/j.jaac.2013.11.001. Epub 2013 Nov 22.
Disorders on the autism spectrum, as well as autistic traits in the general population, have been found to be both highly stable across age and highly heritable at individual ages. However, little is known about the overlap in genetic and environmental influences on autistic traits across age and the contribution of such influences to trait stability itself. The present study investigated these questions in a general population sample of twins.
More than 6,000 twin pairs were rated on an established scale of autistic traits by their parents at 8, 9, and 12 years of age and by their teachers at 9 and 12 years of age. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.
The results indicated that, consistently across raters, not only were autistic traits stable, and moderately to highly heritable at individual ages, but there was also a high degree of overlap in genetic influences across age. Furthermore, autistic trait stability could largely be accounted for by genetic factors, with the environment unique to each twin playing a minor role. The environment shared by twins had virtually no effect on the longitudinal stability in autistic traits.
Autistic traits are highly stable across middle childhood. and this stability is caused primarily by genetic factors.
在自闭症谱系障碍以及普通人群中的自闭症特征方面，人们发现其在个体年龄层面上具有高度的稳定性和遗传性。然而，对于自闭症特征在年龄层面上的遗传和环境影响的重叠以及这些影响对特征稳定性本身的贡献，我们知之甚少。本研究在一个普通人群的双胞胎样本中调查了这些问题。
通过父母在 8、9 和 12 岁，以及老师在 9 和 12 岁时对 6000 多对双胞胎进行了一项成熟的自闭症特征量表评估。使用结构方程模型对数据进行了分析。
结果表明，在不同的评估者中，自闭症特征不仅是稳定的，而且在个体年龄层面上具有中度到高度的遗传性，而且在年龄层面上遗传影响也存在高度重叠。此外，自闭症特征的稳定性在很大程度上可以归因于遗传因素，而每个双胞胎特有的环境因素只起次要作用。双胞胎共享的环境对自闭症特征的纵向稳定性几乎没有影响。
自闭症特征在整个儿童中期都是高度稳定的，这种稳定性主要是由遗传因素引起的。
