RJA #8a: Quotation, Paraphrase, and Summary

""In the U.S., the children of older, white and highly educated parents are more likely to receive a diagnosis of autism or autism spectrum disorder," said lead author Karla C. Van Meter, who was a graduate student when the data were collected but is now at the Sonoma County Department of Public Health. "For this reason, the clusters we found are probably not a result of a common environmental exposure. Instead, the differences in education, age and ethnicity of parents comparing births in the cluster versus those outside the cluster were striking enough to explain the clusters.'"

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2010/01/uc-davis-researchers-find-california-autism-clusters-but-the-cause-is-a-bit-of-a-surprise.html

Quotation:

Although autism is on the rise throughout the United States, diagnosis information can be biased because "'[children with] older, white and highly educated parents are more likely to receive a diagnosis of autism...'"

Paraphrase:

During a study on possible environmental causes for autism, a batch of autism diagnosis was discovered in a few different geographical areas. According to the author of the study, the reasoning for the batches do not seem to be due to environmental causes but rather to the maturity, high education and high income of the parents of the autistic children. It is known that children of such parents are more often able to get the autism diagnosis and are able to get it at an earlier stage in life.

Summary:

Because children with older parents who have a higher education and a higher income are diagnosed earlier and more often with autism than other children, geographical batches of diagnosed autism showed up for this reason during a study to determine if environmental causes played a role in autism.