Lotter (1978) examined children attending services in nine major cities in sub-Saharan African countries. He found fewer children with autism than expected (as compared with prevalence rates in industrialized countries). However, as Lotter noted (and as highlighted by Wing 1993), it was not possible to carry out a proper prevalence investigation in the area concerned. Interestingly, there was a marked excess of children with autism who had parents who had lived abroad for any period of time (indicating a possible relationship between autism and migration). [p. 143] (Gillberg, C., Schaumann, H. & Gillberg, I. C. (1995). Autism in immigrants: Children born in Sweden to mothers born in Uganda. Journal Of Intellectual Disability Research: JIDR, 39(Pt. 2), 141-4.)
Parents returning home had autistic children more often than those that never left. This begs several questions. Does this effect influence both moms and dads? Were the autistic children gestated overseas? What was the influence of latitude (was there more autism among parents that were coming back from extreme Northern or Southern climes)? If parents conceived and gestated children both locally and far away, what was the difference in autism?
Parents that immigrated to Northern and Southern locations, are there opposite season of birth effects?
