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The Cornell study represents a potential bombshell in the autism debate. "We are not saying we have found the cause of autism, we're saying we have found a critical piece of evidence," Cornell researcher Michael Waldman told me. Because autism rates are increasing broadly across the country and across income and ethnic groups, it seems logical that the trigger is something to which children are broadly exposed. Vaccines were a leading suspect, but numerous studies have failed to show any definitive link between autism and vaccines, while the autism rise has continued since worrisome compounds in vaccines were banned. What if the malefactor is not a chemical? Studies suggest that American children now watch about four hours of television daily. Before 1980—the first kids-oriented channel, Nickelodeon, dates to 1979—the figure is believed to have been much lower.
...
He found what appears to be a dramatic relationship between television viewing and autism onset. In counties or years when rain and snow were unusually high, and hence it is assumed children spent a lot of time watching television, autism rates shot up; in places or years of low precipitation, autism rates were low.

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Research has shown that autistic children exhibit abnormal activity in the visual-processing areas of their brains, and these areas are actively developing in the first three years of life. Whether excessive viewing of brightly colored two-dimensional screen images can cause visual-processing abnormalities is unknown.

http://www.slate.com/id/2151538/

oh, yet another reason
as if i wasn't convinced already.

I don't think Orthodox Jews have lower rates of autism than other people. I doubt autism is caused by TV, although I definitely see how it could worsen because of TV. Maybe the rain keeps people inside instead of socializing.

I don't think you have any way of basing this guess on anything...




That's possible. It's certainly not the last word on the subject, but it's an interesting finding and you can see how it would make sense. Personally I am terrified by today's cartoons, I cannot imagine how it can be healthy for little children to watch these flashy graphics that change erratically every millisecond.

One of my friends works with families with autistic children in the frum community here. There are many, many of them.

It is definitely a very interesting finding.

I don't know what today's cartoons look like, but that sounds bad.

If you worked in a mental hospital, you'd think that everyone in the world is crazy...

I definitely think tv can exacerbate issues/impede progress but it seems like if you found even 1 kid who has autism but has never been exposed to tv, the hypothesis suffers. Since I know 1 kid like that, I can't help but be sceptical.

I have my own theory on autism rates getting higher, though.

Care to elaborate?



That's a lot of assumptions... I just read this article (http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,...1548682,00.html) where the conclusions on the correlation are being criticized. Interesting...

I'll try later. Right now, I'm in the midst of breakfast, etc. and can't really type up a well -thought out paragraph.

My first thought. I worked in this field and I don't think there were any less autistic children within communities that don't watch TV at all. There seems to be way too many holes in this. From my own little circle I know between 10-15 non TV watching autistic children. And what about the autists that you pick up on, way before they can veg in front of a TV screen?

I hope your breakfast was good. I'd love to hear your theory.

Yes, um, sorry. In answer to your question, breakfast was yummy (as were lunch and dinner).

Here's a rough version of my theory (typed with one hand while holding a toddler so please excuse any typos or unclear sentences. Oh, and I welcome comments, it'd be interesting to see what others think and how it fits with what others see.

My theory is twofold:

1. “Autism” is a spectrum disorder and covers a wide range of individuals. So, you can have two people who both legitimately have the label autism but are nothing alike. (Think of Down Syndrome in comparison where individuals are still individual but there are huge similarities.) Also, you can have different individuals that respond to different treatments. Or, treatments that help some tremendously but don’t affect others at all. To me, this points to several different causes of autism. For example, I know of kids who have been helped a lot by diet modification but others who haven’t changed one bit. This would make sense if diet modification (or whatever other treatment) addressed one cause of autism but not others.

2. I think there’s definitely a genetic component most of the time (although there may be some causes of autism that are not genetic.) Therefore, if you look at family members of those with autism, you can often see some characteristics of autism in lower doses. These characteristics in moderation make create people that are highly successful in the modern world. So, for example, being extremely detail-oriented makes a dysfunctional individual (autism) but very detail-oriented makes a great engineer. And, haven’t we all joked that computer geeks have no social skills? It’s because they (generalization, yes there are exceptions) have opposing wonderful skills that make them successful in that field. Take those same skills, concentrate them, and you’d have someone with autism.

So, in the modern world we have sort of a “sickle cell anemia situation.” Some of something is great but too much is a disability. This wasn’t always the case at all. Your average, successful computer geek would have made a terrible farmer. So, the rise of autism can be attributed (in part, there’s always better diagnosing, etc. that play a role) to modern society’s valuing those traits.

Ironically, one of the treatments for Autism is teaching autistic children with video modeling. They respond well to the video as opposed to a live person teaching them.