Negative effects of paternal age on children's neurocognitive outcomes can be explained by maternal education and number of siblings

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 5; no. 9; p. e12157
• Main Authors: Edwards, Ryan D, Roff, Jennifer
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 14.09.2010; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Abortion; Adult; Age; Analysis; Assortative mating; Child; Child Development; Child, Preschool; Children; Children & youth; Cognition; Collaboration; Correlation analysis; Cross-Sectional Studies; Economics; Education; Evolution; Families & family life; Family; Fathers - education; Female; Females; Fertility; Humans; Infant; Intelligence; Intelligence Tests; Male; Marriage; Mating; Mens health; Mothers - education; Parent educational background; Paternal Age; Pediatrics and Child Health/Child Development; Pediatrics and Child Health/Developmental and Pediatric Neurology; Public Health and Epidemiology/Social and Behavioral Determinants of Health; Quality; Siblings; Social capital; Socioeconomic factors; Studies; Young Adult; New York
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0012157

Recent findings suggest advanced paternal age may be associated with impaired child outcomes, in particular, neurocognitive skills. Such patterns are worrisome given relatively universal trends in advanced countries toward delayed nuptiality and fertility. But nature and nurture are both important for child outcomes, and it is important to control for both when drawing inferences about either pathway. We examined cross-sectional patterns in six developmental outcome measures among children in the U.S. Collaborative Perinatal Project (n = 31,346). Many of these outcomes at 8 mo, 4 y, and 7 y of age (Bayley scales, Stanford Binet Intelligence Scale, Graham-Ernhart Block Sort Test, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Wide Range Achievement Test) are negatively correlated with paternal age when important family characteristics such as maternal education and number of siblings are not included as covariates. But controlling for family characteristics in general and mother's education in particular renders the effect of paternal age statistically insignificant for most developmental measures. Assortative mating produces interesting relationships between maternal and paternal characteristics that can inject spurious correlation into observational studies via omitted variable bias. Controlling for both nature and nurture reveals little residual evidence of a link between child neurocognitive outcomes and paternal age in these data. Results suggest that benefits associated with the upward trend in maternal education may offset any negative effects of advancing paternal age.