Clinical Characteristics of Autism Spectrum Disorder in Israel: Impact of Ethnic and Social Diversities

Table 1

Clinical characteristics of the 200 children with autism spectrum disorders. Significant differences ( value <0.05) were found between the two ethnic groups in patient gender, course of delivery, and consanguinity (see text for details).

Characteristic	Total number (%)	Jews number (%)	Arabs number (%)	value
Male	176 (88)	118 (91.5)	8 (81.7)	0.037
Female	24 (12)	11 (8.5)	13 (18.5)	0.037
Age of diagnosis, mean months (±SD)	37.2 ± 16.3	38.5 ± 18.8	34.6 ± 12.11	0.11
First child	93 (46)	71 (55)	22 (30.5)	0.05
Relatives with autism	23 (11.5)	11 (8.5)	13 (17)	0.021
Consanguinity	18 (9.0)	3 (2.3)	15 (21.1)	0.0001
Vaginal delivery	114 (57.0)	67 (51.9)	47 (66.2)	0.004
Cesarean section	75 (37.5)	52 (40.3)	23 (32.4)	0.073
Vacuum delivery	10 (5.0)	9 (7.0)	1 (1.4)	0.020
Pregnancy complications	64 (32)	44 (34.10)	20 (28.16)	0.290