Birth patterns in mentally retarded autistic patients

Some studies claim to have shown that, compared to the general population, autistic children are born more often in the spring. The current study soug ht to replicate this finding in a large Dutch sample of mentally retarded a utistic patients. Birth data for 1,031 patients with a diagnosis of "Infant ile Austism" or "other psychoses with origin specific to childhood" were co mpared to those of the Dutch national population. Separate analyses were pe rformed on diagnostic subgroups (i.e., infantile autism vs. other psychoses with origin specific to childhood), gender, and intelligence. No evidence was found to suggest that autism is characterized by a deviant birth patter n.