Infant head growth in male siblings of children with and without autism spectrum disorders

Constantino, John N.; Majmudar, Palak; Bottini, Alex; Arvin, Molly; Virkud, Yamini; Simons, Paul; Spitznagel, Edward L.

doi:10.1007/s11689-009-9036-5

Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Table 1 A summary of published studies comparing head growth in children with autism vs. controls^a

From: Infant head growth in male siblings of children with and without autism spectrum disorders

Study	n ASD^a	Dev. period of measurement (months)	Mean IQ of subjects	Control group	Method of measurement	1st year of life principle findings	12–36 month significant findings	Analytic method^b
1. Courchesne et al. 2003	48	Birth—14	75	CDC Norms/FELS longitudinal sample study	OFC and MRI	Birth-14 month (acceleration)		Cross-sectional
2. Torrey et al. 2004	15	Birth—14	56.8	NCPP (1959–1965 birth cohorts)	OFC	Difference at birth but no difference in growth trajectory	[no difference]	Cross-sectional, growth curve
3. Hazlett et al. 2005	113	Birth—36	54.1	Contemporaneous controls with TYP (n = 178) or DD (n = 11)	OFC and MRI	[no difference]	12–24 months (acceleration)	Cross- sectional, growth curve analysis
4. Fukumoto et al. 2008	85	Birth—12	75.5	JMHLW 2000 infant physical growth survey	OFC	1–12 month (acceleration)		Cross-sectional
5. Elder et al. 2008 (Study of 77 high- risk sibs)	Not Reported	Birth—24	Not Reported	2002 CDC Norms	OFC	Birth-12 month (acceleration)	12–24 months (deceleration)	Cross-sectional, multilevel modeling
6. Dawson et al. 2007 (deceleration)	28	Birth—36	61.5 (Mullen Composite)	2002 CDC Norms	OFC	Birth-12 month (acceleration)	12—36 months (relative deceleration)	Cross-sectional, growth curve
7. Webb et al. 2007	28	Birth—36	Not Reported	2000 CDC Norms	OFC	7–10 month (acceleration)		Cross-sectional
8. van Daalen et al. 2007	53	Birth—64	<70: 33 70–85:6	1996, 1997 NOASR	OFC	[no difference]	[no difference]	Cross-sectional
8. van Daalen et al. 2007	53	Birth—64	>85: 14	1996, 1997 NOASR	OFC	[no difference]	[no difference]	Cross-sectional
9. Constantino et al. [Current Study]	48	Birth—36	92	Unaffected sibs and contemporaneous control sib pairs	OFC	Birth—15 month (trend, acceleration)		Cross-sectional, growth curve

^aNumber of ASD-affected subjects from unique families
^bP-Values for principal differences between ASD subjects and controls
1. Comparison of 22 ASD infants vs. 31 controls with birth—14 month data indicated a significantly greater increase in HC, p < .001
2. At 4 months, the HC of the ASD subjects was not significantly larger than the HC of the controls (p = .07)
3. The growth curves for subjects with autism vs. controls were significantly different; p < .001 for all three parameters comprising the curves
4. In the low functioning ASD boys, HC differed from the controls at 1 month (p = .0008), 3 months (p = .025), and 6 months (p = .0001). The high functioning ASD boys differed from the controls at 6 months (p = .02)
5. Whole group cross-sectional differences between high risk siblings and CDC norms are significantly different at 6–12 months, p < .05 at each time point; birth—12 month slopes are greater than CDC norms, p < .001. Subset with significant ASD symptoms (Early Developmental Interview, EDI or Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers, M-CHAT) vs. those without differed in 12–24 month HC slope (EDI, p = .05), and exhibited a larger 12 month intercept (M-CHAT, p = .02)
6. The orbitofrontal circumference (OFC) z-score for the ASD subjects at 12 months was significantly larger than the control group’s (p < .001). Although the rate of change of HC decreases from 12–36 months (p = .001), the rate of change does not significantly differ from that of the norms (p = .409)
7. The mean OFC z-scores in the ASD group did not significantly differ from the controls from 0–7 months and from 10–13 months, but they were significantly larger than the controls from 7–10 (p < .001) and 13–36 (p < .007) months
8. No significant difference between ASD subjects and controls were found
9. Growth curve trajectory for ASD subjects mildly accelerated in comparison controls for age range birth—15 months, p=.07. The magnitude of difference was on the order of 0.03 cm/month

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ISSN: 1866-1955

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