What does autosomal recessive inheritance mean?

LAMA2-RD is inherited in an autosomal recessive pattern. This means a child needs to inherit two disease-causing copies of the mutated LAMA2 gene (one from each parent), to develop the condition. People who inherit only one changed copy are called carriers. Each parent is usually a healthy carrier, meaning they carry only one mutated copy of the gene (inherited from one of their own parents), not two, and so they do not have symptoms. Healthy carriers often do not know they carry a changed copy of the gene.