Role of parental occupation in autism spectrum disorder diagnosis and severity

• We test associations between broader autism phenotype of parents and ASD diagnosis of offspring.
• We examine occupations associated with having offspring with an ASD diagnosis.
• We investigate associations between broader autism phenotype of parents and ASD severity.
• Fathers in healthcare and finance had greater risk of having offspring with ASD.
• Children of parents with technical occupations exhibited greater ASD severity.

Some have suggested that parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may present with less recognizable autistic-like phenotypic characteristics, leading them to highly systemizing occupations. Using secondary analysis of data from two previous studies of children with ASD, we tested associations between parental occupations and ASD diagnosis and the association of parental occupational characteristics on ASD severity. We found that fathers in healthcare (P < 0.01) and finance (P = 0.03) were more likely to have children with ASD. Additionally, joint effects of parental technical occupations were associated with communication (P < 0.01) and social impairment (P = 0.04). These results support that a “broader phenotype” and possible assortative mating in adults with autistic-like characteristics might contribute to intergenerational transmission and having offspring with greater ASD severity.