6.200 Autism and Maternal Antidepressant Use A recent study53compared 298 children with Autism Spectrum Disorder to 1507randomly selected control children without the disorder. Of thechildren with autism, 20 of the mothers had used antidepressantdrugs during the year before pregnancy or the first trimester ofpregnancy. Of the control children, 50 of the mothers had used thedrugs.
(a) Is there a significant association between prenatal exposureto antidepressant medicine and the risk of autism? Test whether theresults are significant at the 5% level.
(b) Can we conclude that prenatal exposure to antidepressantmedicine increases the risk of autism in the child? Why or whynot?
(c) The article describing the study contains the sentence ‘‘Noincrease in risk was found for mothers with a history of mentalhealth treatment in the absence of prenatal exposure to selectiveserotonin reuptake inhibitors [antide- pressants].†Why did theresearchers conduct this extra analysis?
Thank you!
