Title. Curious.
Its possible that autistic women are more likely to have children later than neurotypical women, and that autism is entirely hereditary.
There are many possible explanations that don’t involve the age of the mother being causal.
I thought it was older fathers that was one of the factors… Though older mothers tend to also mean older fathers, so who can say.
I just vaguely recall something about it, so nothing trustworthy either way.
The most important factor that decides if a child is born autistic is the genetic makeup of the parents.
But autism as we know it is just a collection of specific clinically observed neurodivergent traits. It’s not just one thing and slightly different traits can also fall in the categories adhd, bipolar, or a different kind not medically acknowledged form of “being different”
What is also known is that the sperm of older men carries more mutations, some of those could result in neurodivergent traits that the parents themselves not have. Its reasonable that its similar with the eggs of older women.
Based on this i think we can conclude that older parents have a higher chance on getting children that have one or more neurodivergent traits on top of the neurodivergent traits that where already normally inherited (i believe most normal people also have at least a few minor neurodivergent pathways in their brain that makes them unique, hence “everyone has a little autism” while its no way comparable in practice)
How those unique mutations manifest and will be perceived by the medical community (within normal unique or named disability) is impossible to say, some minor neurodivergent traits can even end up being beneficial.
Current data shows that it can go from the rough average chance of 1-2% to 2-3% (roughly a 10-70% increase depending on how old the mother is)
So yes, but not in a significant way.