| Summary: | Family history (FH) of autism and ADHD is not often considered during the
recruitment process of developmental studies, despite high recurrence rates. We
looked at the rate of autism or ADHD amongst family members of young children (9
to 46 months) in three UK-based samples (N=1055) recruited using different
methods. The rate of FH-autism or FH-ADHD was 3-9% for diagnosed cases. Rate
was highest in the sample recruited through an online participant pool, which also
consisted of the most socio-economically diverse families. Lower parental education
and family income were associated with higher rates of FH-ADHD and lower parental
education with increased FH-autism. Thus, recruitment strategies have a meaningful impact on neurodiversity and the conclusions and generalisations that can be drawn.
Specifically, recruitment using crowdsourcing websites could create a sample that is
more representative of the wider population, compared to those recruited through
university-related volunteer databases and social media.
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